


Smile Wide

by SassafrassRex (Serbajean)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: (i can't believe i only just now added the unreliable narrator tag), (who even am i?), Alien Culture, Beheading, Beheading from anterior, Beyond canon-typical violence, Blood and Gore, Caregiver Burnout, Cuddling, Culture, Dehumanization, Humans Are Weird, Illness, Imprisonment, Intimidation, Mention of Animal Death, Mentions of animal attack, Murder Babies, Neither is Shiro, Not yet sorry, Observed rape/non-con, Outsider's Perspective, Pre-Voltron, Shiro (Voltron)-centric, Shiro Week 2016, Slice of Life, Tea!, Unreliable Narrator, a bunch - Freeform, as in ours, at times not chronological, children crying, conflated resentment, curbstomp fight, dogs (tw) for those with cynophobia, earth cultures, earth is amazing, globetrotter shiro, lmao moshpit etiquette, multiple POVs, murder babies isn't a tag?? how is it not a tag?, rampant headcanons, some mild unconsented touching (battery), some... pretty paperthin entendre, tense-jumping, use of he/him and she/her and ze/hir for a more-than-binary alien species, yes i'm putting tea in the tags i do what i want, you guys this isn't a dark fic this total schmoop i just tagged cuddling
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-21
Updated: 2018-02-10
Packaged: 2018-09-01 08:18:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 9
Words: 41,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8616538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Serbajean/pseuds/SassafrassRex
Summary: He warns them to be careful of him. Every single match, he warns them.It can't really be helped, what happens beyond that.But while Shiro sets to edging his teeth, just what all is going on around him? He's won the crowd, what about the rest? Outgrowth/Continuation of Shiro Week 2016 (Day 2: Champion, and Day 4: Relationships)





	1. Chapter 1

Now with art!  
Because holy shit, but [Gitwrecked  
](https://gitwrecked.tumblr.com/post/158080436215/smile-it-intimidates-those-who-wish-to-destroy)is a goddamn gift to humanity!!!

 

* * *

 

 

Lightyears across the universe, but teeth still mean _everything_ to the creatures that have them. Canines as anchors to hold meat still. Edged incisors to guillotine through it. That’s the carnivorous mammalian system anyway. Some aliens match it, some don’t.

But teeth do mean everything.

His eyeteeth are shorter than most other fighters’. But he’s found that human incisors are plenty sharp enough, the _vast_ majority of the time. 

He’d never appreciated that before. But sure enough, they do the job.

His opponent shows its teeth to him. He shows his right back.

If it isn’t interested in treating (and he always offers—they can make a show of it. A good show. They can both live through this, if they do it right). If it brushes that away and would rather just kill him? Well, he can deal with that.

It took him exactly three fights (three fights, which hurt more than they needed to, if he would have known what he was doing) to figure out that the majority of these hilariously uneven matches will ultimately be determined in the first ten seconds. When one fighter or the other gets scared.

His teeth aren’t as long but he snarls all the louder.

That’s the game.

_You could kill me inside of five minutes but if you aren’t careful, I’ll take your eyes out._

_If you aren’t careful, I’ll bite a hole in your face. I’m crazier than you know._

_I’ll hurt you if you let me. Kill me but I’ll make you pay for it._

_If you’re not careful._

That’s the show. Then careful, careful; they try to kill him without getting too hurt.

Because getting hurt—being damaged, slowly growing _weak_ —is so, so much worse than dying outright in a single match.

He isn’t scared of being damaged and that makes them nervous. He’s weak already, he isn’t scared.

Weak already, but all he wants is to hurt them. That’s all. He’ll grind the dust. He doesn’t care about anything else and that makes them _very_ nervous.

It always goes like that when he fights those ones that are _so_ much bigger and stronger.

And after they waste their time being careful. After he whittles them down, leads them on chase after chase (and surprise, surprise—maybe not so weak after all; not so slow, not so soft), he's the one who walks out of the ring. All the care they’d taken, all the caution he’d warned them to exercise, and they’re the ones who are dragged out.

That really is the only way to take on the big ones. And the crowd eats it up.

The smaller ones though. The wilier ones, and the ones with training. He has to give his best for them. His smartest, his fastest, his sharpest. Every bit of skill he has or they’ll take him apart. They won't scare and they know what they're doing. They're crazy too.

Facing monsters makes him meaner. Facing the others—the smaller, the _faster_ , the actual combatants—makes him _better_.

Winning makes him both.

(Fuck, if he ever gets used to this)

 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Relationships? Why, that’s code for ‘thinly veiled cuddlies’ right?  
> So much love in this room.

Shiro hasn't been here very long but he’s pretty sure it isn’t supposed to be this cold. He was sweating buckets after the last match, but he actually cooled out faster than it could dry.

Which brings him to his legitimately miserable present state: cold, wet, huddled against the wall. Most of the others are finally asleep, so he’s quit trying to tamp down on his shivering (which is approaching pseudoseizure proportions, and his teeth rattling would wake up the whole ship if he were to unclench his jaw).

There’s no way it’s supposed to be this cold. Wasn’t like this yesterday.

Enviously, he glances over to where Loekhan’s curled up.

One of the names he’s learned so far. Decently big, looks like a two-trunked elephant with an anteater tail. Sort of, anyway. Walks like a pangolin.

And has fur. Thick fur. Hence the envy.

Shiro hasn’t been the only person to notice. It was a couple hours ago that Loekhan peeled off the uniform they make him wear, then fluffed up his greasy (warm-looking) coat and dropped right off to sleep. Since then, everything with a face has been sending him looks ranging from speculative, to envious, to resentful, to a disturbingly open kind of _wanting_. The first one brave enough to crawl over nearly got his head knocked off. So did the second. The third (and there was indeed a third. It’s fucking cold in here) just got swatted in the face with a trunk. But boldness won out, and the fourth was only growled at, before the space heater in question (not making that joke) finally decided he’d stopped caring.

He now has six different people curled up next to him. None of them friends as far as Shiro knows.

Shiro would laugh at it. Might even laugh loud enough to be heard. But he _doesn’t_ have thick fur, so really, who’s the jackass in this picture?

They’re switching it up for him tomorrow. His first melee. That’s… worrisome in a way that he’s not going to think about because he has to sleep tonight. Really, he does, as much as he can manage. Which, at this rate, just isn’t going to work. He can see his breath, and it’s not like anyone’s about to walk up and give him a damn coat to wear.

Fuck all.

With a huff, he hauls himself up. And – _fuck_ , ouch – nearly falls back. Shocker, but running around (getting _punted_ around), and then sitting on the floor and _freezing_ may have left him just a little bit stiff. He’d walked around some after his match but, it seems it wasn’t enough.

He elbows two others away from the spot he wants. One of them squawks a bit but doesn’t make a thing of it. Shiro settles down right behind Loekhan’s shoulder. And oh but there is a god, because he’s putting out enough heat to light fires with.

Fucking thank christ, Shiro’s kidneys ache like they blame _him_ for how fucking cold it is. He shuffles a bit until he can press his back up against someone else’s. And hunkers down with as much of himself plastered against thick fur as possible (fur which smells vaguely of paint fumes and horseshit; altogether kind of gag-worthy, but Shiro buries his frozen nose in it anyway).

Loekhan cracks an eye open to stare back at him. Shiro glares hard and growls. He’s not about to move, he just finally got comfortable. The eye slips shut again, an expression of profound indifference. Shiro checks around the room one time more before following suit.

Still cold. But better, at least a little. Watch him catch fleas from this.

Ask him how much he cares.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Shrugs] ‘S how remoras do it. Commensalism, ftw.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So many other authors manage to write arena-time Shiro as capable of being a “moral even in the midst of beating people up” kind of dude.  
> And why not? He’s a multi-faceted person, there’s no reason not to write that.  
> \--Such was my thinking at 3 am this morning.

  
It’s so loud. Dust gets all in her eyes and chokes her tighter with every breath sucked in through her mouth. So loud and she hates it. Where is Ziani? She was told to stay close.  _Don’t get lost_ , not for anything. Not for an instant, but  _where?_

Where?

Her hands cover her ears but the noise leaks right through. Choking, crying, she sprints through the chaos, looking for the one face she knows.

A body hits the floor right at her feet. Another lands on top of it and starts ripping into its throat. She’s so short the blood splashes all the way up into her eyes. Maybe the dying one looks at her, but she screams and she’s already ruining again.

Something grabs at her foot. No,  _go away!_  Another body, crawling along the floor with features twisted in rage or in pain. But his grip is weak enough to kick him off. She kicks him right in the face as hard as she can. And when his head snaps back, she’s already up, scrambling away.

Her tail hurts. Someone stepped on her tail. Or cut it or broke it but it hurts.

Where is Ziani? They’re all so huge.

And so loud. She wishes on both her ymma and aja. She prays, even while she’s running.

 _Help!_ Why didn’t she stay with Ziani?

_Help please_

Give Ziani back and she’ll do better. She won’t get lost again just,  _please._ What is she doing here? Why did they even bring her here?

So much dust that everything’s invisible until it’s right on top of her. Her skin’s probably more dust than blue. Ziani could run right by her and not even notice.

And she keeps hitting walls. She runs and runs and she always meets smooth, solid wall. She’s just going in circles, isn’t she? She passed that outcropping before, she passed that stone before. Others were fighting atop it. That big red one was up there (the one now on the ground, cut almost in half).

She’s lost, running in circles.  _Help_

She passes the stone again, looming high through the confusion. Not pausing, she dives down and wedges into a narrow gap underneath it. Barely enough room for her to lie flat but she crawls as far back as she can. Her tail hurts  _so much_  and she covers her ears and shuts her eyes.

It all goes on for a very long time and no one notices her.

What’s she even doing here? No, that’s obvious; they’ve made her part of the herd. Unarmed, tossed into the melee, to add to the tumult. To make things more exciting.

She knows  _why_  she’s here, but what is she  _doing here_? Why would they do this, she works hard. She’s one of the rats, and they’re going to make a fighter of her, like they did with Ziani. But not yet. Not yet. She’s not yet supposed to be old enough, there must have been a mistake. She’s a good worker,  _why_  did they send her out here?

The ring is always so loud, but she’s never been the one inside it.

She wishes things were still like before. Before Ziani left. The work was hard down in the sublevels and Ziani was angry all the time, but hadn’t things been alright? Ziani took good care of her for a long while. Before disappearing one day and leaving her all alone. She’d cried about it because she was little back then, and she’d wondered why it happened. Until they taught her about the arena. About being old enough to fight. And how  _she_  would move too, once she’s not a kit anymore.

(She’s not a kit. She’s not a little baby.)

But she was lucky. When the rotation changed, she left the sublevels behind, they reassigned her to the ring. But only as a rat. One of the little attendants that scuttle back and forth to serve the fighters and assist the handlers and do whatever the overseer says needs doing. It’s not different from downstairs, the dust chokes as bad as the black fumes ever did. She gets to see Ziani sometimes, so that’s good. They’ll make her a fighter when she’s strong enough to be worth watching.

So then why is she here? She wants to pound her fists on the floor but she can’t pry then away from her ears. It’s not supposed to happen yet, she’s a  _rat_  and she’s  _good_. She prays to Reizolm and to her own ymma and aja; she asks what to do.

She keeps asking until it grows just a little quieter. And then quieter still. Could it be over? She shuffles forward and dares peek out. Just in time to see an enormous hand reach in and drag her up.

 _No_ , it’s not yet over.

She kicks and scratches and dangles upside down. She screams for Ziani to help her.

She sees feet below and the whole world swinging. Her tail hurts, her head hurts.  _Let go_ help _just go away!_ There’s a loud yell. Then she’s falling and thumping down onto the ground. The dirt stinks, there’s blood everywhere. She says her prayers—says  _thank you thank you thank you_  just as fast as she can—so that Ziani won’t disappear again.

A gaggle of feet kicks up the dust, Ziani is fighting someone. Two someone’s. They’re  _big,_ they’re  _both_ big. What if they kill Ziani, what if they kill  _her_ what if—

They won’t. They just

They won’t, they can’t she’s safe. She was supposed to stay near Ziani, and Ziani’s right here.

She cowers and waits for it to be true, she waits to be safe. She should be helping. She should get up and fight, she’s not a child anymore. She should move at least, she should hide. But she  _can’t._ She can’t, she’s too scared. All she can do is lie still and cry and cry with clumping, stinking mud on her face.

One of them steps close enough to block out the lights above. Horror jolts right down to her broken tail as she realizes it’s  _not_  Ziani at all. Never was. Too tall, too broad.

She should move. She  _has_ to run, he might kill her. He’s already killed one of the two and he’ll kill her when he’s finished. 

He’s more than twice her size. He’s not Ziani. He’ll kill her, she needs to run.

She just cries harder. Go away. All of it just  _go away_

_Help please go away_

She hears a growling, coming up fast from behind. Unfamiliar, a new sound, and her limbs skitter over dirt but she’s  _too slow_. Much too slow for the wide mouth that suddenly looms up so close that she could count the teeth.

_Help helpohplease_

The jaws snap shut.

But not on her head. A blade jams between them with a  _clang,_ and there he is. He’s killed the other one. He yanks at the weapon, and the mouth peels back and opens wider, wider, wider until the flailing creature stops moving. Half its head dangles on a hinge, and it has so many teeth.

He turns fast when it’s dead, and she finally sees.

That’s Champion. That’s not Ziani, that’s the Champion. Her crying cuts out because she can’t quite breathe. He’s the newest victor. Brand new, they’re still talking about him.

Ziani told her about it. Ziani wouldn’t stop talking about him either.

Ziani.  _Please,_ yes, Ziani’s the fighter, not her. She’s not a gladiator, she just ministers to them, why did they leave her out here?

Her chest is so tight, but sobs leak out again. She’s never been so afraid in all her life, but this is  _Champion._  Champion is strong enough, Ziani told her so.

More teeth, more hands, more snapping, and now he’s shouting. It’s too much, she can’t. She waits and cries and she’s too  _old_  to be crying.

She hadn’t wanted to be scared, she thought she could be strong too. She’s so so sorry, she wishes she’d never gotten lost in the first place. She’s a just rat but they made her herd, and she  _needs_  to find Ziani. The Champion will know where. Won’t he? Champion’s strong enough.

She can’t look up. She can’t move. Not until the all the snapping  _stops_  snapping and the pounding feet hold still. And slowly, slowly

They do. When her head lifts, there’s Champion above her. He’s so tall. Standing, she wouldn’t even reach his elbow. With harsh lights shining behind him she can’t make out his face, but he’s looking at the crowd, not her.

In truth, it’s barely any quieter, the crowd still drones. But the air is clearing, the dust is settling. She can blink it out of her eyes without more blowing right back in.

He could still kill her. What if he does? She’s sure that he’s going to. Or he’s going to leave and someone else will.

Curled on her belly, she reaches out and grabs onto his leg. Mercy. Fighters are allowed to plead mercy but she’s not a fighter…  _Please_ , she needs help. He has to help.

Oh no his leg’s bleeding. She feels so stupid. His leg’s all chewed up, she shouldn’t be touching it. He’ll be so angry and—

 _Thunk!_ And her fists snap tighter, she turns to see a sword in the dirt at Champion’s feet. But he needs that doesn’t he? Why did he throw it away? _Pick it back up,_ she needs his help.

Then two hands are on her back. Hands; she’s had  _enough_  of strange hands grabbing her, and  _no,_ she holds tighter to Champion. Her eyes squeeze shut and her fingers dig at him. He’s bleeding, so she shouldn’t but she doesn’t care.

But she’s too small. She tries, but she’s just too small. They’re stronger than she is and they pry her off him, no matter how she  _tries_ not to let it happen.

A voice is speaking. But only speaking, not screaming. Quieter, she realizes. Quieter, calmer. She stops squirming, she tries to stop crying, and she concentrates, until the foreign sounds turn into words.

“—’re okay. Come on, come here.”

The Champion reaches under her arms and she’s being lifted through the air again. The hands wrap around her back and press her close, like she’s still some little kit. She cries like one, and locks her legs around his waist. She doesn’t care. He’s bigger, and he’s strong enough and that’s all she cares about. He smells like blood, too. Everything does.

“It’s done. They won’t touch you, okay?”

His voice is low and calm. And constant, like something ancient. He says other words, but she’s too scrambled to translate. She’s never been as good at it anyway. Not ever, even though her ymma and aja had declared her—

 _No,_  she doesn’t want to be here. She doesn’t want to be here.

But he’ll help. Champion can, didn’t Ziani say so? 

Opening her eyes, she looks out over his shoulder. Only a few left. Then her mouth opens in a gasp and her hands seize him tighter because— _thank you, thank all, thank all—_ she sees Ziani. Alive. Alive and upright. Standing behind Champion with two others, and they aren’t fighting. No one’s fighting anymore.

She is too old for tears, but she can’t stop. And she is too old for prayers, but— _thank you_ —she can’t stop that either.

They’re the victors aren’t they? It suddenly makes sense. They’re the victors, the ones still standing. Shouldn’t there be five of them? She only counts four, did someone not stop in time?

She reaches out. But Ziani’s glowering up at something, and won’t look her way. So, she pulls her hand back, to wrap it around Champion’s neck instead.

Ziani must be so angry. She didn’t  _try_  to get lost. But she’s sorry, she should have stayed closer. She didn’t mean to.

They all look right past her, at whatever same thing Champion is looking at. She doesn’t know what it is. There’s  _thunk, thunk, clang_ when all three of them formally give up their weapons the same way Champion did. They look so furious. She doesn’t know what’s waiting behind her, but she thinks they look angry enough to give it pause.

They’re disobeying somehow. About what?

Is it her?

There’s a dark thrill up her spine as she realizes it  _is_  her. They’re counting her as their fifth! But she’s not a fighter, she’s just herd. She’s  _herd_ , she’s not even a rat, they’re supposed to kill her and  _how can she run away_  if Champion’s stronger than she is? She’s too small, he’d catch her for sure. She can’t run, so she bawls and holds onto him tighter. 

“Help.” Her throat hurts from all the dust. “Please help.” Please, don’t kill her.

She forgets to say it right, and he doesn’t understand the words. He just rubs his hand against her back and shushes, staring down whatever it is behind her.

It’s loud. Not like before but it still is, the people all yelling and screaming. She wishes her ymma and aja would still listen to prayers. Something is really wrong with her tail. Champion has an arm supporting her, and she should have felt it on her tail. 

Everything’s wrong.

“Keep your eyes closed, you’re okay.” Everything’s all wrong, even when she shuts them tight. “Just keep them shut, it’s over.”

“Sorry.” She tries harder this time, focusing her energy, so he’ll understand what she says. “Please. Help.”

“Huh? Did-… okay. Okay, you’re safe, right now. You’re safe.” She feels the way his chest quivers when he speaks. “Th-they won’t touch you.” He’s Champion, she believes him.

He turns around and starts walking. And when he does that, the screaming and yelling erupt even louder. She can’t tell if it’s approving or angry, it’s just  _loud._  The noise makes her tremble but Champion’s muttering holds steady in her ear. He tells her not to listen to them.

“It’s okay. Keep your head down. It’s over right now, you’re okay.”

She lurches with his every limping step but he doesn’t drop her. Champion says not to, but she does squint an eye open, just to make sure Ziani is coming with them. Not on purpose, she notices a man, standing high above them, very far away.

His skin looks hard, like old stone. And cold, just like it. Much too cold and quiet, and too still.  _Wrong._  He’s all wrong for the way the ring screeches around him.

He’s the most frightening thing she’s ever seen, so she shuts her eyes again.

Champion can’t walk very fast, it takes forever for them to stagger out. He talks the whole way, until she hears a door slam and feels the breeze of it across her skin. Instantly, the yelling turns dull. She hears Ziani speaking to Champion. Ziani wants him to give her over.

Champion holds her tighter and speaks in her ear, “Sweetheart, is that right? You know this person?”

Does he eat hearts? That makes her seize up.

Then a guard barks at them to move along. She twists around, holding her hands out to Ziani, and Champion’s strong arms slip away.

Then she and Ziani and the other two are herded one way, and Champion the other.

She should be walking. Ziani’s hurt, and shouldn’t have to carry her. She should be walking, she’s not a kit anymore. She’s supposed to be stronger, she’s almost old enough for them to send to the arena in her own right.

She lets Ziani carry her anyway.

And she’s lowing. She doesn’t mean to, but her tail hurts (her tail’s gone, isn’t it? It’s gone) and Champion’s going to be in trouble now. It was his fault. He killed the fifth when it tried to kill her but  _he_  was supposed to kill her and she thought Ziani was  _gone_  and she’s still so scared

She hooks her chin over Ziani’s shoulder and calls louder. She can’t help it.

Farther away with every stuttered step, Champion looks back around, head still held high.

He catches her gaze and stares right at her, just for an instant. Before his handlers shove him around a corner and out of sight.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Call me crazy, but I like a lil bit of alien fluff, with him being nothing-but-nice to the least of the nobodies...  
> (Though hey, it’s still his early days.)


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ziani owes Champion some thanks.  
> Shiro learns a smidgen more about the workings of the arena.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As quiet as the previous chapter was loud.  
> For whatever reason, these characters turned cynical on me. Very rude.  
> Also, we’re playing a little bit of POV hardball here--people with very different motivations and opinions. But it shouldn’t cause confusion, I don’t think. Someone please tell me, if it does.

  
“Could you not call me that?”

“What else, if not that?”

“… Could call me  _Shiro_.” He lifts his shoulders and lets them drop. “It is my name, more or less. It’d be kind of nice to hear.”

Ze shakes hir head. “No, I dare not.”

Ziani had initially approached just to offer Champion thanks. Propriety demanded such, and ze would never withhold it anyway—ze only still has a sister because of him. The nautori people may only still have a Seer because of him (Ziani tries to keep hope but hir bright girl—locked in a prison—could well be the last one).

There are wounds on him that he didn’t have when last night’s melee ended (though they _have_ at least been seen by medical). He’s not been fed today.

Light punishments, relatively speaking. Fair, since he didn’t  _technically_  do anything untoward. They fought to the last five, as per their mandate.

Light punishments, but still. Should he decide he regrets the assistance he provided… well, Ziani could thank him just fine from  _over here._

Such was hir thinking, when ze first made hir cautious way by the corner where he’d curled up alone.

But he didn’t stand up or motion offensively in any way. It was strange, ze would have expected reflexive growling at the least. But no, nothing. He just seemed tired. Or ze thought so anyway, watching his idle fingers tap and curl, scratching aimlessly at a rough spot on the floor. His eyes seemed hollowed out.

But then he gave a smile (and that’s a dangerous assumption to make—Champion’s an alien, that expression could mean _anything_ ). He said he didn’t mind at all. Don’t thank him. He couldn’t think of doing otherwise.  _Really, don’t._

(Once ze would have agreed. How far has life fallen that to simply refrain from harming a child— _not a child anymore. Old enough to work, old enough to fight, she’ll be here any day now—_ should be enough to merit  _thanks_?)

When he speaks, Ziani is surprised at how easy it is to translate. Most minds are so tumultuous. Their thoughts are disorganized, their words incomplete. And the muddling makes it so difficult to understand them. But this one knows where he is, who he is, what he wants.

Champion knows  _himself_  and so, he’s very easy to talk to.

Perhaps that is what allowed him to coax hir closer, to come sit down with him.

Now they sit very close indeed, almost knee-to-knee, both their heads tilted toward each other, to be heard over the surrounding racket. They’ve been talking for much longer than anticipated. Ziani hopes ze isn’t being charmed somehow (hypnosis? Pheromones? Who knows how his species hunts?)

Champion would rather ze called him… whatever that word was he just said. As if ze would do that.

“Why not?”

“It’s not you. You’re Champion,” ze stumbles over the sounds, just a little. “Like I’m Ziani, you’re Champion.”

He opens his mouth, but Ziani speaks first, “Learn that. Learn to listen for it.”

He closes his mouth again, and ze tries to read the line of it. But that’s assuming his expression means what ze thinks it does. He’s an alien (must, must, _must_  remember that). He is as alien as the rest of them, no matter how clear his eyes or how steady his mind. That his words make sense doesn’t mean they couldn’t be  _lies. Must_ remember.

But by hir read, his face is quiet. Obliging. It’s an expression probably meant to pacify hir.

But there’s no compromise to be seen. Just stubbornness—Ziani can counsel whatever ze likes, he just won’t listen.

That’s unwise of him. But Ziani can understand the sentiment. 

( _Very_  well. Reizolm help hir, ze _understands._ )

Time will teach him what ze cannot. Time spent here, with no way out and he will eventually learn to listen like everyone else. Still, ze can at least try. To educate him, to ease his transition. Champion _is_  Champion, he should know about it. He’ll grind the dust like every other but he saved hir sister, so ze owes him  _something._  

Yes, ze can try to teach him a little. Ziani folds hir legs beneath hir and sets a hand against his knee. “When a gladiator starts winning—or when the crowd starts to recognize him—he earns a title. Losers go nameless but winners… Something distinct. And recognizable.” But nothing too complicated (the crowd is built out of idiots). “And always appropriated from the  _home_  of that gladiator. A word from his sector or his planet.” The spectators are particular about that, they like it a lot. They think it’s… well, Ziani doesn’t pretend to know their minds. Maybe they see it as a mercy. Or a gift, or an honor. They’re fools, so who can say?

“ _Ziani_ is a word in the language I spoke at home.” Ze earned the title some time ago. The fighter called  _Ziani_ has been at the ring for a long time, winning (a long time, too long a time, ze sometimes thinks ze should have grown old by now). Yet, hir experience couldn’t protect hir  _own sister,_  and a  _stranger_  had to—

Ze unclenches hir fists, blowing out a breath. Ze notes the narrowing of Champion’s eyes, and forces hir shoulders to relax and hir face to slacken. That he hasn’t attacked  _yet_ , doesn’t mean he won’t. If ze provokes him, if ze makes him nervous enough. So, Ziani forces hir crest soften out, and calmly resumes speaking as though there had been no break. “It means  _sharp._ Like a loud noise. See. That—” ze points out one of the bigger ones, across the room, “—is Loekhan.”

Champion nods quickly. Ze wonders, have they already met? “It means  _immense_ ,” which he doubtless is, even if many of the kept beasts dwarf him. Ze frowns, considering, “Like _behemoth_ I think, for you.”

 _Behemoth…_ These strange, foreign words flow from his awareness into hirs, just as easily as a clear stream of water. It’s something noteworthy, how stable he is.

“ _Champion,_ then.” Ziani pronounces it slowly. “This is a word from your planet, is it not?”

He lifts his shoulders and then lets them drop. His voice is flat. “You’ve understood everything else I’ve said. Shouldn’t you already know?”

Indeed. “It suits you.” Ze finds ze is smiling. Maybe charmed after all.

 

***

 

For his part, Shiro indulges hir. Ziani says _Champion_  suits him, and he just shrugs. He doesn’t want it, but no one asked him.

Ziani is the first person to voluntarily come close to him in what feels like an age. If ze wanted to gab about weather patterns or inflation rates or the shit food they get each day— _not today,_ his stomach reminds—that would be just fine with him. 

(He does not wish Matt were here with him. Not even a little.)

Unless something breaks, they don’t _have_  weather to discuss. Or currency to devalue. The food  _is_ shit, and he _would_  prefer his own name, thanks. But so long as it keeps hir talking. So long as he can hold onto some company.  _Please,_  let hir just keep talking to him, for as long as ze’s willing to do it.

The possibility of having to fight hir isn’t something he’s forgotten. He looks at Ziani’s face and vaguely imagines half of it missing. The top half, peeled off like he did to that creature yesterday. Looking down, he eyes hir tail. Short, only as long as the backs of hir knees. Feathered, but no barbs or anything obvious. Did he see hir using it in the melee? Ziani means  _sharp?_  Ziani means _noise?_  Whatever that holds in store, he can only guess at. Ze’s a nautori, right? ( _Part,_ ze corrects, but won’t tell anything more.) He can’t remember if there’s anything special about them. He wonders what color they bleed (he’s seen every color of the damn rainbow already, isn’t that something?)

They two might happily discuss whateverthehell Ziani wants to talk about then tomorrow, ze might crack his skull apart. Or he might bleed hir dry.

Maybe.

But… that’s something he’ll just have to deal with, isn’t it? If he can’t compartmentalize all this, he’ll probably just wind up never talking to anyone again—

(Never realized how much he’d relied on Matt, for someone to hold onto.)

—which isn’t feasible. At all. The notion of solitude, in here—of being surrounded by people, but with no one to interact with  _ever_ —is just an abyss. It’s dangerous, don’t go near it, don’t even look at it. Given everything else that’s happened, Shiro feels a chilling  _practical_  sort of certainty that he’d lose his mind if he had to persist in here, all alone.

(Shouldn’t think like that anyway. There’s no  _persisting,_ this isn’t forever. It’ll end somehow. He’ll… just somehow, it will.)

Ziani’s not Matt. Not Commander Holt. Ziani isn’t anyone of his.

But Ziani’s the only one here.

Ze shifts and resettles against the wall next to him. Looking thoughtful, or maybe just bored. “It is not a word… from the languages you were born to, I think.”

_What?_

What were they talking about?

Right. Ze won’t use his name.

He doesn’t know why ze’s still explaining. Ze might just like hearing hirself talk (Shiro breathes out a chuckle, thinking some traits were bound to be universal). But he’ll listen, as long as it means ze sticks around. 

To hir inquiry, he dutifully shakes his head. No, English wasn’t his first. Or his second, either.

“But you know it.” Without asking, ze reaches up and taps the side of his head, a soft pressure against his temple (ze should know better than doing that to someone without warning. Ze could lose a few fingers that way). “Or the druids could not have learned it from you.”

Oh, was that how it happened? Back at the beginning, when they had-… when he’d first been _investigated_. By those creatures in the hoods and masks ( _druids,_  he thinks, _they’re druids. Learn that_ ).

“They added your languages to the codices. If you did not know this word  _Champion,_ the ring couldn’t have chosen it for you.”

He supposes that does make more sense than galaxy-spanning cognates. He’s not sure why, but something about that whole thought process strikes him as really funny.

Ziani’s smirking again, maybe ze thinks so too.

“I suspect they chose the word because they thought it a superlative. That it meant  _the best_. Or  _victor_. It makes sense—the first time they ever noticed you was when you won a fight that oughtn’t to have been winnable.”

Ze makes a noise like if a bird were to try to  _humph._ “They aren’t known for looking deeper. Their grasp of subtlety is as pathetic as their grasp of reason.”

He snorts out a laugh.  _Yeah_ , little bit. They’re people who voluntarily frequent the arena, he doesn’t expect much.

Ziani leans in with eyes twinkling. “They have it too simple.” Like there’s some terrific secret to share, “Yes, they do. It is not merely one who fights  _well._ ”

Ze reaches over and picks his hand up. The physical contact feels weird, but maybe that’s just him. Does all this mean something to nautori? Is there a significance he doesn’t know?

“It is one who fights  _for._ ”

He can see hir jaw clenched. “A _champion_ preserved my sister.” Hir crest is flattened to hir head.

“They aren’t aware, but they’ve given you a name that means  _advocate._ ” And ze hisses, like ze somehow wants the words to cut. “It means _defender_. They do not know this.”

Hir eyes are just as sharp, when they meet his. “It does suit you.”

 

…

Thanks?

Pardon the ingratitude. But, believe it or not, he actually  _still_  wants no fucking part of it.

 

(It’s really, really nice, having someone to talk to.)

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... The fun part of episodic "The horrid continuing misadventures of..."-style fic?  
> Ya can pick it up again after STUPIDLY long-ass hiatuses!  
> But yeah, I am _so_ sorry for said hiatus. If anyone's reading, here- mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.  
>  And many (many!) thanks to the couple of folks who put this fic on radar again!  
> SO, off we go, then!  
> Featuring Shiro and a very fast turtle, with antennae... And me, fangirling over the badassery of the human blood clotting cascade.

  
The arena is rife with its types and its paradigms.

When Loekhan fights, it is bedlam. He is almost as large as the ring’s longest-standing victor, who had been called Myzax. Loekhan’s armaments are simple. Wall-thick fur down his back and front, and wickedly hooked claws. With the strength in one trunk, he can snap bone (and Loehkan carries two). The power in his forelimbs would fragment the spine of a Hindran galvoq, at a single blow. But behind the straightforward bulk of his might, Loekhan carries something of a secret. Loekhan is  _fast._ Faster than his heavy bone and muscle have any right to be, and it has been the horror of many an opponent, to step into the ring with him and make that discovery.

When Ziani fights, it is with hands, feet, tail, and voice. No massive claws or coiled power, hir people were always wilier. When roused, hir tail feathers align to catch light and shine like a mirror. And the soporific sound of hir voice moves undisciplined minds to wandering. Ziani’s natural weapons are vestigial. Nothing like the blinding colors and will-breaking songs wielded at the time hir mother’s people first took their leave of Daibazaal. Ziani is 13,000 years of evolution smaller and duller than they. And ze is only part nautori to begin with, though the crowd does not know. But hir truncated tail still dazzles the eye, hir dampened crooning still draws the ear, and hir thin limbs find their way to hir opponent’s soft places.

When Sunkatur fights, it is horrific. Plating shines on her face and shoulders, starless black and glossy white, her long, long tail snaps and  _slices_ like a whip. The talons on her feet carry toxin. The barbs on her tail carry toxin. The teeth in her mouth.  _All_  carry a potent necrotizer that cripples—that burns, that _eats—_ but that never kills. No opponent of Sunkatur’s has ever died of poisoning, she is not so dull as that. She does not sneak or hide, but strikes out like an adder, unrelenting. Her fights either end very fast or very. slow. And very rarely in mercy, because Sunkatur is a showman. Her cruelty and her delight make her a favorite.

There are many veterans of the Galra arena. Merciless and eye-catching, quick and strong, clever and ruthless (always, the Galra have enjoyed cleverness and ruthlessness). This is the model. Bright and canny, bristling with weaponry and natural advantages.

But this archetype has seen a shift in recent days.

When Champion fights, there is blood. Nearly always, there is blood enough to bathe in. If Loekhan carries secrets, and if Ziani’s people could be called  _wily_ , then Champion’s people are deceivers and liars and demons. Because Champion has no tail, no claws. No lulling voice, no gnawing poisons. Champion’s weapons aren’t visible. One of them, he carries in his very blood. The sharp-eyed members of the crowd will notice, that though Champion may be bloodied down to his knees, it is dark and congealed, not bright and streaming. It clots as fast as it flows. Champion will stagger, looking more than half-dead, and watchers will think him done for. And he will  _continue_  to stagger _—_ he and his foe will trade hit after hit, new blood will flow down to coat the old—and watchers will  _continue_  to think him done for.

Until the wise among them glance at the timekeepers, and realize just how  _long_ Champion has held them in suspense, watching him with bated breath, thinking him on the verge of collapse. Champion’s patience has made them patient.

Champion’s madness drives them mad, because the other natural weapon he carries is that he is rabid.

It is a boldness that makes cowards of his foes. He will fight gladiators twice his size, thrice his speed, and onlookers will gape at the severity of the wounds he is willing to take. Where others would flinch, and dance backward out of reach—cautious in the face of hazard—Champion pushes ahead. All he wants is to hurt them, he has no care for consequence.

(Spectators first find this shortsightedness amusing. But Champion does it again and again and carries the damage without dying and  _this,_ they find enthralling.)

This will be the course of his bout, until he’s seen what he needs to see. Then he will stand straight, painted in red from his head to his knees. He will peer up through the bloody veil framing his eyes, and he will grin wide, to signal this fight is over.

And inside another handful of ticks, it always will be.

The ring had been needing new blood; he brings a welcomed paradigm shift.

Champion’s fights are uneven, Champion’s fights are long. Champion’s fights are bloody, and Champion’s fights are a joy to watch.

His opponents are his betters in every observable way. They  _must_ be. Otherwise Champion’s fights are only tragic

***

His handlers brush rough, thorough hands over his skin, checking for anything he might have secreted away before going into the ring. When they uncover his face and step away, the gate slams shut at Shiro’s back, leaving him alone in the antechamber. He picks up the weapon he’s been left, considers the moisture smattered along his shoulder, and strides forward away from the gate. With his handlers safely outside his reach, his collar heats up against his skin, humming under the neck of his suit as it switches from _maintenance_ to _standby_ , where it will stay for the duration of the match.  

The switch dials the tolerance up; Champion could enact  _quite_ a lot of violence before it triggered. But it raises the resonance, as well. If he  _did_ manage to set it off, or if someone activated it remotely, the restraint could have him on his knees in an instant, and then dead inside a handful of minutes. He’s seen gladiators executed that way. He would bleed from his nose, then from his mouth. With the mounting pressure, he would bleed from his ears, then from his eyes, before he dropped dead.

When Shiro first saw it done, it left him so disturbed he couldn’t sleep. All that night, he stayed awake to fight with it. His fear was brand new, he worked like a man possessed, fingers scrabbling in a frenzy to  _get the damn thing off him_. But with the resonance set low and the tolerance set lower, it fought back. Stung him so many times he lost count. Shiro bit into his tongue. His shaking fingers first grew slippery, then eventually stiff. A jolt finally came, like a bomb going off in his chest, and Shiro had one split second to think it had killed him.

But it didn’t kill him, he woke up again. To his face crusted with salt and snot, and the band still purring away. Hopelessness, Shiro found, weighted heavier than his twitching muscles could hope to lift. Enough to crush air from his lungs, the first wakeful sound Shiro made was a sob.

Nowadays, he barely notices it. Outside the ring, it’s a deterrent, it won’t kill him. Inside the ring, there are plenty of other things to probably kill him first.

And on that thought, Shiro wonders who he’ll be facing today. He usually makes a point to find out beforehand (guards or handlers or even the little attendents can be moved to tell, if they’re asked right). But something must have happened, because the call was made late. He has no notion of the identity or the competence of his proposed opponent.

But as he hears the summon, and his focus narrows to a honed edge, he decides it can’t matter now.

***

It matters.

***

Miai’s arm is weak and so is the swing. He blocks it without even changing his stance. Catching her wrist, he spins in close, movement never faltering. Between seconds, he yells, “Do better!” before he makes a show of flipping her over his hip. Her landing kicks up a plume of dust. She rolls fast, scrambles up and away, and the crowd laughs and hisses. Over a thousand people, from hundreds of galra planets. No one in her favor.

She’s pathetic.

_ Do better. _  To look up and see their scorn makes fear coil in his gut.  _Do better do better,_ she _has_ to start doing better. A dozen shallow cuts stream black blood all down her smooth carapace, but Shiro’s untouched.

Miai panics, coming straight at him, and it’s the work of half a thought for Shiro to disarm her. He checks her too hard, and she sprawls on the floor, flat on her back. The impact of his shoulder meeting her face jars a cry out of her mouth, high enough to be heard over the background drone of the ring.

_ Damn. _  He didn’t mean to do that. Not right on the coattails of already throwing her.

She slowly rolls to her feet. Shiro lets her. He nudges a toe under her weapon—the same heavy, hooked blade the galra are so fond of—and he kicks it her way, in a display of open scorn that makes the crowd love him all the more.

She tries. And she tries again, but she’s got no endurance. She’s moving slower and slower with each passing minute, and Shiro can’t even pretend to be breathing hard. They know him too well.

Shiro doesn’t know how the fights are organized, but what  _idiot_ decided to pair her up with him? Weight-class isn’t something the galra seem to understand, even on the best of days, but still, whose idea was it to toss her so far outside of hers? There must have been a mistake somewhere, there must have. Watchers want to be entertained, how was this  _ever_ supposed to accomplish that?

But while Shiro laments, Miai’s not done yet. She hefts the sword in one hand, and raises her other, with pencil-thin, diamond-hard claws on display.

He keeps his eyes peeled for a chance. Just a  _chance,_ but his heart is sinking. Step by step, divorcing itself from the notion of success. Shifting its expectations towards a new, less forgiving outcome.

Prayers are petitions made without real hope of answer. So, it wouldn’t be wrong to say that Shiro prays.  _Please, do better._

She turns fast, and it’s not hope—it flashes through him too fast and irrational to be hope—but he thinks that if he lets this one connect, it might be _just_ believable.

But Shiro wasn’t meant to win this. Not in the way he prayed for. He lets her leap at him, and time slows to a crawl. He can point out the nanosecond when it enters her awareness that he’s not moving to guard.

And she gets a look in her eye.

Her lunge brings her close and she pushes forward, free hand splayed open like she’ll gut him right here, and faster than he can even panic, Shiro  _moves_

She’s on the floor again, clutching the broken remains of her wrist. Shiro’s mouth falls out of its snarl when wide eyes stare up at him in shock. Why would he do that?

But she was trying– he thought that–  _no_ , why did he do that? He didn’t mean to but now, she’s down. Now, she’s on the floor and this is  _done_. There’s only one place to go from here and Shiro curses himself for what he just did.

He hears blood thrumming in his ears.  _Now,_ his breathing has finally picked up.  _Now,_ he finds it in him to feel a touch of panic.

Miai struggles up to her knees, lifts her arm and pleads pardon. Mercy.

But he thinks he knows the answer she’ll get. There’s only one place to go,  _why_ did he do it? Why the hell would he go and do that? Frustration claws like the lowest futility, he should have waited longer. He was supposed to give her a chance to do better. She tried to kill him, what was she thinking?

She’s pathetic.

She’s pathetic, and Shiro drops his head in defeat. There’s a banality to the the pounding of his heart, and a staleness to his distress. The predictability of his freneticism leaves him bored, and he can’t keep pretending he’s surprised by any of this.

“I’m sorry,” he didn’t mean to.

Emperor Zarkon rises, the crowd howls in argument against itself. Shiro looks up, taking it for a good sign. He’d thought her doomed, but perhaps there’s some dissent?

He steps up behind her. “Don’t listen to them.” He’d like to pitch his voice low and perhaps calming, but she wouldn’t hear it over the ambient noise. Instead, if he has anything to offer her, he has to bow his head and shout it. “Don’t listen.” What good would it do, for her to hear them deciding?

Miai closes her eyes and folds her ears over. They’re triangle-shaped and floppy like a dog’s, which might have made him laugh. She folds them shut before also covering them with her hands, so she won’t have to hear her verdict. Her right hand is a mess of splintered fingers, so she uses her forearm instead. Her fear is so palpable Shiro thinks he can smell it. But maybe it’s lost under the ambient mix of ichor and waste. Both antennae wave around in a panic. She’s crying, not that he hears it over the noise. Shiro puts his own hands on top of hers, wishing it kept her from hearing. She is filthy (and for once, he isn’t). Her hands are sticky with gummy black blood that smells like tar. Shiro’s touch surprises her and she jerks hard, smearing it across his palms as well.

Standing at her back, with his blade leaned up against his knee and his eyes cold, he knows how well he sells the part of the perfect bloodthirsty gladiator, dutifully holding her in place. Two hands on either side of her head, securely atop her own where they tremble over her ears. Face blank, he un-bows his head. He doesn’t look down again. He says, “Don’t listen,” and various other useless things. He’s not certain just what. Whether he tries to offer comfort or if he just tells her to hold still.

Her ears are covered, his voice is loud right next to her, and he  _wishes_ it were enough. That she wouldn’t have to hear them.

“It’s over, don’t listen. Don’t listen, you’re done, just—” he doesn’t know what he’s saying, he doesn’t know how he keeps his voice even. She probably can’t even understand him. But if it’s worth anything, he’ll keep it up.

She begins to speak herself, and Shiro’s learned some of the words she uses, “—name…  _Not_ … … –ram.  _Not_ —” He understands that much. Shiro’s grasp of the galra language is paltry at best, but he knows a lot about the ways to say “no.”

The rest of her words are a mystery. Lost in the noise, and most of them probably aren’t even Galra, anyway (what, he wonders, was her language before she belonged to the empire?) If she is praying, he won’t tell her to stop. If she’s cursing him and all the ring to every hell, he won’t tell her to quit.

The pitch of their howling changes, and  _of course_ she hears it. Her lurch nearly dislodges his hold, but he grips tight and just keeps on. Her antennae jerk and twitch, waving so hard they blur, and she shrinks down, her back pressing close to his legs. “–ai Tram.  _Not_ … ever, not ever—”

“You’re not here.” His voice is steady and his eyes are flat. He promises her, “You’re not here, you’re done. You’re  _done_ —” Her shoulders climb, she scrunches herself down between his hands, desperate for someplace to hide

When the verdict comes, he’s not surprised.

Back home, Shiro could break a bird’s neck with a turn of a wrist. Breaking a dog’s neck would mean the work of both arms and momentum. Begin to involve shoulder strength, and that could break a human’s neck.

She isn’t built like any of the above. It doesn’t require twisting; the torque is all lateral.

He’s seen it done before, with her species—a straightedge laid across where her collarbones would be. And a sharp enough blow to the back of the head. The neck becomes a lever, the straightedge, a fulcrum, and her life will end in a crunch.

It looks simple enough, but Shiro knows it’s delicate. If he aims too high or too low, it won’t work. He’ll just crush her trachea and she’ll die slow. He breathes out carefully. Gathers his focus and swallows his despondent need to talk with the condemned.

With their decision rendered, Shiro can’t stall. Now, the crowd is  _screaming_. Miai’s incompetence bored the hell out of them, they’re anxious to see  _something_ worth the time they’d invested in coming here.

Shiro hooks his heel under the scythe-curve of his weapon, flips it up into his hand. His other palm ready to thrust against her head, she still whimpers, “–t Miai, my  _name_ —”

Miai rips her hands down and juts her chin out, “My name is Tung Zhai Tr–”

Shiro’s done it perfectly.

Her carapace cracks and there goes her spine. Shiro considers that he may have hit a tad too hard because the back of her neck splits open, right above the brim of her suit. Stiffened skin makes for good protection, but it doesn’t stretch very well. A small stream of blood spurts up, blotting across his front, and he can see what might be vertebrae jutting out from the split, between her plates. Her weight sags. Shiro pulls his sword away, and lets her flop down in a broken heap on the floor. 

He stands tall and gives the blade a lazy spin over his wrist. Arrogance seeps into every line of his stance, and he tosses his head at the people watching him. Today’s victor, willing enough to pardon the ring for having just wasted his time. He raises an arm in salute and shows his teeth in a wide grin, pointed towards the emperor’s box. The galra smile the same way humans do. They would know if Champion didn’t appear to be enjoying himself.

With its wearer dead, Miai’s collar goes dark and the latch clicks open. Shiro kneels, to tug down the neck of her tunic and fish it out from where it’s safely nestled under the fabric. It’s his job to collect it and give it over to the handlers.

He heads into the antechamber and waits by the gate. There’s humming and heat against his neck, and standby reverts to maintenance. Outside the ring, his leash is shorter, but the band’s reprimands become a good deal more survivable. A shock or a sting of varying severity (there’s a  _reason_  his handlers remain armed when they approach him).

He has three of them. Three handlers whose faces he sees regularly, who seem to officially be  _his_ (never less than three, but some days he makes them call for more). They have him hold Miai’s collar, arm fully extended, dangling from the tips of his fingers, before they’ll take it. His hands are still covered in blood that used to belong to her, but it’s all dried by now. When they take the band from his fingers, nothing of her goes with it.

With a leadline that he doesn’t make them jerk, they bring him to medical, where he receives the same onceover he always gets after a fight. Today, there’s nothing for them to see. He’s not hurt enough for treatment (he’s not hurt at all), and he’s not dirty enough to be hosed off (he thinks that’s unfortunate).

***

He has an inkling of how well the crowd likes him. Someday, he  _might_ be important enough to get his own cell, but that day’s not here. He lives in the pen with the others, nothing keeping them separate except some faint lines on the floor, and the lazy half-deterrent, wrapped around everyone’s neck. But they keep their own order.  

The droning chatter drops half a decibel when he walks into the pen. Several heads turn when the gate opens, before their owners register him, and return to their business, or their recreation, or their rest. That he won comes as little surprise. Those who watched know Miai isn’t coming back. Those who didn’t will hear soon enough.

Shoulders back and expression bored, he strides immediately towards the far corner, where he always stays. A corner is better than a wall is better than the open floor, but nearer to the gate is better than farther (less open distance to cross). Champion entered this foodchain fairly high up, for what he did to Myzax. He’s too green to make the top, but he certainly hasn’t lost any ground, since being here. His corner suits him fine.

He walks slowly enough to give people the chance to get out of his way.

He remains tensed for any who don’t. But they scurry to bend themselves around him so seamlessly that he almost thinks he  _couldn’t_ touch them, even if he tried.

Something about that makes him sick. Nearing his destination, untouched and unbothered, he jerks his head at Ziani, who waits with hir back to the wall. He knows his reputation intimidates, but he’s not so stupid as to think he’s an island (nor does he want to be, nor does he think he could  _stand_ to be; how Shiro hates being alone). Ziani can speak with him, not everyone can do that. And ze came prepackaged with a small handful of allies. So, after he managed to not scare hir off when they first met, Shiro cashed in the rest of the favor ze owed him, in order to stick close.

Ze returns his nod and stands up, offering him that space to sit after his match. Once he’s settled, ze takes a seat again, now casually positioned between him and the rest of the racket. Shiro nods at the propriety, then frowns out at the room, until everyone goes back to ignoring him. Exhaustion has been advancing like a train. Slowly, so far in the distance it looked like it wasn’t moving, until wheels are rolling across his back. What right has he to exhaustion, anyway? All he did was kill someone who couldn’t stop him. 

He opts to rest his head back against the wall, instead of letting it drop to his chest like it wants to. The sigh is involuntary, and it comes out long and bone-settling. Ziani tilts hir head in general inquiry, but Shiro just shrugs. He’s floating on still water. No wind or current, nothing to insight him towards movement. Drifting alone in his crowded room, and the slightest touch could rip him apart.

Ziani drums hir fingers along his arm. Shiro re-solidifies with a quiet snort and half an eyeroll. Tired, but here. He still hasn’t worked out if the tactility is particular to Ziani or just to nautori. But ze feels comfortable to do it without worrying he’ll take hir hand off and that could mean he’s been too lax, that could be bad. For this tired moment, he’ll let it be and say it just _is_.

He rubs his palms along the floor to let the gunk ball up and fleck off. He considers the cold wall at his back, and Ziani’s drumming fingers at his side. He’s tired, but he’s here.

Shiro looks out again, keeping watch and feeling bored, ever-thankful for the company.

Late that night—when even Ziani is dead asleep—he curls up, face pressed to the floor in prostration to the person he killed today. And slow, sparse tears trickle out of his eyes without making a sound.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Brief callback to chapter 1, re: Shiro's functionality.  
> Lol *scratches head* next chapter is so far shaping up to be a bunch of Shiro!whump. I'm debating whether I'm too embarrassed to post it (probably not, but we will see).  
> In any case, if you liked/hated/had any reaction at all, and you've got a second to spare, then please leave me a line with your thoughts!


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heed those damn tags.  
> This didn't turn out the way I intended. It was going to be good-spirited Shiro!whump.  
> Didn't work. Got darker. Heed. tags.  
> 

 

  
What does Shiro know about dogs?

Well.

Strong jaw, strong neck and shoulders. Middling-to-sharp teeth. Crushing bite force. Good endurance.

There is a gutter circling the edge of the arena. Meant to catch runoff during large melees, it makes the ring easier to maintain. Cleverly, the channel happens to connect to the pens at the farthest wall. So, provided a willingness to stand ankle-deep in tepid shit, an off-duty gladiator may enjoy a perfect cockroach’s eye view of all proceedings.

A veritable sewer rat, Shiro stands on tip-toe, watching Nikta slam his opponent’s head on the ground (serves them right, they were dawdling). Nikta, he knows, is a fighter who first came with a crop of twelve other prisoners. By all accounts, he was timid and he was fearful. The kind of person who wasn’t going to last. And surely enough, he lost his first three bouts.

But there the story derails because he escaped execution all three times.

Apparently he  _suffered well_.

To Shiro’s understandably raised eyebrow, Ziani had flatly added “the noises he made,” when he was hurt. He suffered beautifully; they liked the way he begged, and so he remained alive.

It was all well before Shiro’s time, but at some point, Nikta had apparently cracked. And oh, to be a fly on the wall that day because “timid” is not the word Shiro would use to describe the fighter he’s watching.

According to one of the twelve, “Nikta” means  _shrill._  It also means  _weak,_  it also means  _flimsy, brittle,_ and other embarrassing things. A humorous callback to the pretty way he’d yelped when he took beatings.

He needed exactly two fights, to convince the crowd he’d turned a corner. Two  _startlingly_ grisly wins, two upsets, in order for  _Nikta_ to earn that smirking name.

Champion earned his in just one, so he’s got no obligation to play impressed. Still. Some of the gossip he’s heard…

When not on his hind legs, Nikta reminds him of nothing so much as a large dog. Bigger shoulders, maybe. Shorter muzzle. He’s heavier and taller than Shiro, but not enormously so. He fights with his clawed hands and feet, and definitely with his teeth. And once he’s dragged an opponent to the ground, higher thinking seems to go away.

So. What does Shiro know about dogs?

He first met them as the strays on his walk to primary school. Boney, wormy, wiry things, his mother said to stay away from them. They were a nuisance, but if one ever got close,  _don’t run._ Stand his ground and yell. Throw a rock. If he had to, he could hit it with his bookbag. Don’t run.

It was later in life he learned they were useful. Could hunt. Could corral horses, sheep, camels, whatever you could think of; Shiro met them as working animals. With warm, coarse fur and furious whipsnapping tails, that slept curled next to him each night but weren’t allowed near his youngest cousins.

Shiro doesn’t know the person Nikta’s fighting. Is beating, rather. Their uniform is in tatters, their skin is in tatters underneath it. As Shiro watches, Nikta grabs a handful of fabric and tears it right off their back, baring a wide swath of skin to the air.

Shiro logs that— _humiliation._ Nikta likes humiliation.

Eventually, Shiro met them as pets. He’d once lived on a street with a guy who kept pitbulls. Ran a rescue. Shiro knew him a handful of months while his family waited for permanent placement. He doesn’t remember his name. Dan? Dale? He was young, for the beer can permanently affixed to his hand. Younger, for the yellowed smile with half its teeth missing. He was one of the first people Shiro met in the U.S.

He loved those dogs. Loved them like they were the only good thing in his life and maybe they were. He loved them so much that Shiro kind of started to love them too. This puppy, saved from  _one of the farms. Sweetest goober ever seen, right? What do you think they’d have done to him without us?_ And that bitch, who’s  _making some progress. She’s actually eating some, with me still in the room. Think maybe she’ll be okay._ He loved everything about them.

The other fighter is down on the ground. Crawling stunned, like a roach in poison. It’s over, they’re done. Shiro leans back on his heels, readying to turn and head in, when he sees Nikta climb on top of—

Shiro blinks. What is he seeing, here?

Nikta has kicked the loser’s knees apart. Their tail swats him in the face when he drops down, Nikta brushes it off to the side. Shiro hears what might be pleading. He can’t understand any of the words but the tone, he recognizes as  _pathetic_ , and the pitch, he recognizes as  _terrified_. The shredded state of their uniform makes a lot more sense. Nikta works at his own suit, yanking it away from his skin. He’s hard. His cock stands up, neither particularly impressive, nor Shiro thinks, even particularly alien, but swelled up with purpose, nevertheless.  

Shiro’s mouth falls half-open. Is this actually happening?

Nikta takes tight hold of the other’s hips, his long teeth come down like a sentencing. Sinking into their neck, an anchor against their flailing. The entire arena watches him fumble for one long, clumsy second. When he finally lines up and thrusts forward, the crowd screams for him, his opponent screams for him. Pain and wide-eyed shock, all muffled into the dirt.

This is all new to Shiro. While he stands here courting trench-foot, the ring plays host to a public fucking. He hasn’t heard of this happening before. Nikta sets a punishing pace, the loser wails and Shiro tries to make rational sense of it. Is this normal? Was there a cue?

Nikta’s head lifts from the other’s neck. His bared teeth have blood on them.

Is it normal, or is it just something Nikta takes because he wants it? The loser is still screaming, but Shiro supposes that could go either way.

“Shit,” Shiro whispers. His hands are white on the dusty ledge in front of him, and his eyes twitch like he’s staring at a lightbulb. To his left and right, others press in tight to watch with him. A long row of cattle, lined up for their daily allotment of mental stimulation. No one bats an eye, is Shiro _supposed_ to ask what’s wrong with everyone?

Nikta just fought, but he pounds into the other like he’s owed it. He’s got more energy left than Shiro would expect (Shiro makes a note of that— _persistence_ ). He thrusts hard enough to shove them up the floor. The loser’s face scrapes over rock, Nikta has to haul their hips back into place.

“Shit,” Shiro whispers. Is he _supposed_ to speak up on behalf of a stranger when his head’s stuck on how, if they live, they’ll be an easier fight after this? They’ll be easier to beat, if he ever needs to. Shiro can hear a slapping noise, skin on skin, and he is revolted or at least he thinks so. “Shit.  _Shit_ ”

A shoulder thumps his, Shiro flinches away before he can stop himself. Eyes narrow, Ziani tilts hir head. Probably wondering what the hell is wrong with him, and Shiro can’t explain why or even whether he suddenly gives such a damn.

But he can force his head back around. The dogs. Guy loved his stupid dogs. Didn’t mean he wouldn’t warn about them. How they can lock up a bite. Strong, in a way that other dogs just  _aren’t_ , they’ll grab and not let go. Their warning signs can pass unnoticed, and people can lose entire limbs. He talked about the ones he’d put down. Gently scratching one dog’s ear, he lamented to Shiro about another—brand new arrival but quiet as a lamb—that got ahold of his girlfriend’s arm. She’d been pregnant. And he’d choked the dog to death before he got it off her. Shiro hadn’t had the balls to ask if she’d gone into labor, or what had happened.

_By the time they maul somebody, they been warning you for months. You just wouldn’t pull your head out your ass and listen. They tell you, they warn you. You should’ve put them down long time ago._

That’s who Shiro’s fighting next.

 

***

 

He leaves ahead of the others. And with the ring at his back, Shiro’s lofty rationalizations come crumbling down. He stumbles into the pen like breaching the surface of deep water. He does gasp like he’s drowning, he does hang his head to breathe in the real world, with its lights and its colors, where the new reality is that Shiro just witnessed something horrible.

He doesn’t make it all the way to his corner, he just leans against the closest patch of wall and grits his teeth.

Shiro hadn’t ever seen anyone raped to death before. Technically, he still hasn’t. Everyone was still alive when Nikta was cued, and bashed the loser’s head on a rock. Skin split open, skull cracked, something oozed out that was too thick to be blood. There was a grunt at the impact, then the loser jittered.

Nikta stood, suit hanging half off him, sweat making spears of his fur. With his head lolled back and languid with scorn, he swept an arm out like a king summoning a jester. Like summoning so many hungry spectators to slobber indecently over the dust and the blood and the drying mess caked between the other’s legs. Splayed wide and since quit twitching. Quite the sight he’d put together. Quite the fare, for these good, hardworking citizens of the Galra empire. He roared at the crowd, daring them to find some mistake, and he rode high on their mindless adulation.

That’s Nikta, that’s the person Shiro’s fighting next. But instead of planning, Shiro is slumped against a wall, unable to scrub this sight out of his head. Shiro has other things he needs to think about. After Nikta, he’ll have another bout but he has no idea the kind of turn-around time. He hasn’t done recon for that match yet, he doesn’t know the modus, he doesn’t know the opponent or opponent _s._  Today, Ziani heard Dotar name-dropping him, so that’s something else. He’s got to find them, put a stop to it. His turn-around time has been getting shorter and shorter and he  _has_ to find out why— Shiro has a legitimate hundred other things clanking around in his head, all needy for his attention. He  _has_  to keep on top of it, carelessness will get him killed but he just. keeps. seeing.

He is still shaking when Nikta himself walks in. Back from medical, he barely spares Shiro a glance, already deep in bowed-head conversation with someone from his crop of once-twelve. As Shiro watches, the other raises a careful hand to Nikta’s nape, combing the tangles in his fur while they murmur to each other. 

They walk on by and Shiro just lets them; his throat won’t open for any of the condemnation Nikta deserves to hear. Nikta gently presses his head to his friend’s, and they disappear into the dimly lit throng of people.

Thinking it over, Shiro decides he’s going to kill him.

 

***

 

Shiro’s not doing well.

Of the two of them he’s bled less, but he’s still not doing well.

Nikta backhands him across the face, and the whiteout nearly costs Shiro the grip he’s gained. The awkward angle of the hit is the only reason he isn’t knocked the fuck out.

Shiro counts it a very bad day when he goes up against someone as persistent as he is. Because

when two gladiators fight,

Shiro tires last.

That’s the way it is. If Shiro can’t overwhelm them, if he can’t redirect them, then Shiro will outlast them. It’s the reputation he’s garnered, and he fans those flames with all due diligence. Take it to the bank, Shiro  _lasts._

But what does Shiro know about dogs?

Dogs can trot all day long.

Dogs are persistence hunters, too.

 

***

 

They’ve both slowed down, but there’s no sign of stopping. Shiro’s scratched to hell and his head is ringing, but Nikta is sporting deep cuts on his shoulders and stomach, and he’s favoring a limb. Shiro doesn’t know how much blood Nikta can be afford to lose, but it’s been a lot.

Nikta’s arm is as big around as Shiro’s head and the elbow meeting Shiro’s temple sets off an  _explosion_  like seeing the inside of a star. His head snaps back, he hears—he feels—his neck  _wrench_

When he checks back in, it’s to the sight of Nikta snorting and gingerly rubbing his muzzle, where Shiro mule-kicked him across the face to get away. Dizzy and stumbling, his world pitches and rolls. Nikta stands before him a hundred feet tall, laughing like some kind of nightmare. Shiro blinks at spots and curls his spine, whimpering at the firehose that’s beating inside his brain.

There’s no time for his head to clear. Something slams into him and then Shiro’s on his back and no  _no_  he’s on the floorhe’s  _on his back_

Alarm pries his clenched eyes open, to see a blurry foot dropping towards him and  _shitnono –_

Nikta stomps down right below Shiro’s ribs. The air is punched from his lungs too fast to even scream it. Shiro’s insides knock the back of his throat, his body curls itself up off the ground. Writhing helpless like a speared snake. Pain makes his whole world ring and then Nikta kicks him again.

And again.

His existence swirls, color in water, while a thousand roaring spectators watch him kicked on the floor.

 _Humiliation,_ it floats across his mind. Yes, Nikta does that.

The clawed foot to his solar plexus lifts him straight up and Shiro catches air. A spinning second of weightlessness, then he crashes to the dirt, sprawled on his back and Shiro realizes he can’t breathe. Like his chest is paralyzed, like the first kick left him stunned.

 _Trapped._ With no way to breathe and no way to endure, and drowning in pain he can’t even quantify, Shiro panics. The next kick comes and he rolls into it. No, he _throws_  himself into it, hard as he can. His weight meets Nikta’s shins. Clawed feet flail, Nikta’s balance goes, and then Shiro’s loose.

He scrambles away on his hands and his feet, grabs up his weapon. Now is the time to press, not to back off, but Shiro  _needs_  air. Stumbling back out of reach, he leans on the sword. Head hung down between his shoulders, he strains, _forces_ his body to inhale. Air rips into him, his chest expanding, his back rising—

—but it hurts him so badly he can’t stop it hitching halfway and jolting back out. There’s pain deep inside him, pulsating between his ribs and his navel. Shiro gasps shallow breaths, wracked with an atavistic conviction that if he gives to the urge to cough, something terrible will start happening.

Nikta is laughing again, Shiro’s certain of it. Loud, barking laughter that makes Shiro want to thrust a fist down his throat and rip out his tongue.

It’s just enough to get him his breath back, then he stockpiles the thought for later. Win first. When Nikta is running on fumes and Shiro still has more to give,  _then_ Shiro can tear him apart in as many ways as he wants.

But he has to get there.

Shiro lurches forward on unsteady feet.  _Get there._

_Make it happen_

 

_***_

 

Nikta’s on all fours with Shiro’s blade sunk into the meat of his shoulder. Shiro’s on top of his back, unclear of how he got there, with Nikta’s pained howl ringing in his head.

The hooked knife-end rips loose, blood and tissue splatter across Shiro’s face. A split second with it in his eyes, he can’t—

Nikta’s head whips around over his shoulder, lightning-fast like a snake, and Shiro blinks at the sight of enormous dog teeth, closing on a human arm. Horror blooms deep in his gut, Shiro is frozen.

Then the canid head wrenches back around, and Shiro’s suddenly rocketing forward over his shoulder. He lands at a roll, turning momentum into distance until he’s on his feet, out of reach.

Nikta clicks his sharp teeth together. That’s _Shiro’s_  blood he’s licking up and sneering over.

The arm doesn’t yet hurt. He dare not look down at it and Nikta doesn’t give him the time, anyway. Technique abandoned, he lets out a growl and just throws his weight forward. Catching Shiro full in the chest, bearing him right down to the ground. The _thud_  threatens Shiro’s breath again, his entire world spins. Claws punch holes through his skin where Nikta tries to hold him still. Heart in his ears, Shiro’s caught in a storm, he can’t think

A hand grabs his jaw and turns his head up. A waft of stinking breath where Nikta looms just above his face, filling up everything Shiro can see. Their eyes meet, Nikta grinds pointedly down against him, leering with too many sharp teeth.

Shiro freezes, eyes round in his head. Revulsion climbs up his throat, he’s pinned and he’s panicking and he has to do  _something_ he can’t _move_ —

His head darts up, Shiro aims for an eye. But there’s no purchase, his teeth scrape down Nikta’s face until they find masseter. The dogs flash through his mind and Shiro clamps down hard.

His entire world narrows to the tears filling Nikta’s eye.  _See how you like it._

The shock buys him a second and a half, Shiro slips an arm up and wraps Nikta’s elbow, to yank that support out. It’s a pretty inglorious picture, two people trying like hell to lock each other down. But Nikta still has claws hellbent on stabbing him. A line of fire rips down his side and Shiro  _rages_  through clenched teeth.

He’s on his back, he  _has_  to get out. Something sloshes hot and rancid in his mouth, dribbles from the corners of his lips, Nikta is bleeding all over him. Levering them both from the floor, Nikta slams his weight back down and Shiro’s breath comes out in a sob. But he doesn’t let go. Either Nikta’s skin will give, or Shiro’s teeth will rip from his head because he couldn’t open up if he wanted to.

Feet kicking, Shiro finally finds some leverage. Nikta’s above him, weight splayed out too far and _where the head goes, the body follows_. There’s a sound of flesh ripping, one or both of them give a scream, and then Nikta goes slamming down to the sand.

 _Loose._ Shiro scrambles up on numb limbs. A quick reckoning of Nikta’s hands— _where. count them—_ and then Shiro’s staggering forward to get what’s owed him.

The first kick catches Nikta right above the eye. He’s pretty sure he breaks a toe, but Nikta’s head snaps back and suddenly this is the moment Shiro’s been _living for_.

The swing nearly overbalances him. Shiro wobbles dangerously, arms waving, but he doesn’t have any pride left to swallow. The world is misting, his legs threaten to drop him on his ass any second now.

God, they love this, don’t they? They’re howling up there.

Shiro hauls back and kicks him again. It clacks Nikta’s jaws together.

Face screwed up in contempt, Shiro works him over like some hick outside a bar. He lands his boot between Nikta’s hind legs, and the squeal tells him he’s hit paydirt. Shiro’s clenched teeth give a grin. _Shrill,_  right? Wasn’t it?

The sound penetrates the fog on his brain, where it kindles such a shitty, lowbrow smugness that Shiro can’t resist kicking him again.

It’s _good_ to be on this side of—but then he  _can’t see Nikta’s hands, where are his hands and_  Shiro quits his fun, to dart away before anything grabs him. But the caution goes to waste. Nikta just holds his pummeled head and whimpers on the floor.

Air is causing him problems again, but when isn’t it? Shiro jams a couple fingers into the corner of his mouth, twisting until his teeth ratchet apart. 

_Way back behind their teeth, so they can’t bite. You get your whole hand down their throat and they’ll open right up._

Mobility comes back into his jaw and the urge to gag suddenly rears up, undeniable. There’s _hair_  in his teeth. His mouth is sour, there’s a wad of skin and fat sitting on his tongue.

Shiro hauks and spits, remembering at the last second to aim at Nikta. Strange to be spitting someone’s mangled face back at them, but it earns him a roar of approval (which, _good,_ he deserves it).

He wants to vomit, but he thinks of how much that will hurt. A few more painful hacks before he gets control. Air rushes into him full of dust, and rushes back out on strings of spit and mucus and everything he was just chewing on. Shiro rests his good elbow on his knee, gulping breath after dusty breath and permits himself an inventory.

His head’s getting away from him, the entire world tilts when he moves. He’s cut and scratched all over, there’s pain pulsating deep at his core. Ribs to groin, his abdomen is rigid like a drum and there’s a nagging fear to the fact that it’s hurting  _more_  with time, not less. Reddened mud gloves Shiro’s arm from his elbow down to his fingers. Blood drips from his hand fast enough that the wound might sneak up on him if he doesn’t pay attention. It’s too filthy to make out the full damage but the teeth were huge and Shiro got  _dragged_  by that arm. The pain is less than it should be, he doesn’t dare trust his grip strength.

Nikta huddles on his knees, cradling his head and a hand trembling over the hole in his face. When he accidently touches it, Nikta flinches away from his own fingers.

One more breath, then Shiro levers himself upright. He circles wide, until he can grab his weapon up from where it’s been waiting, abandoned. Shiro isn’t ambidextrous, but it’s not going to matter.

Blood caked on dust caked on sweat caked on blood and dust and blood and dust. Layered on his face, he’s wearing a mask of it. He is swimming in it, every stuttered breath is laced with it like it’s been choking him as long as he’s been alive. Wiping his face against his shoulder just smears it around, he’s cutting filth with more filth. Sweat stings his eyes and the buzz in his head makes room to gripe that they’d  _better_ wash him down after this.

Shiro swings hard and snags Nikta in the gut. No block, no dodge, the blade digs deep and rips loose. The thing’s not a sword, it’s a meat hook, this is probably what it was designed for. Nikta shrieks, clapping one clawed hand to his side, and Shiro spots a loop of something, slipping out between his fingers. Dark and slimy-looking, hanging from Nikta’s belly where it already gathers dust. Then the smell hits. Pain has already left Shiro nauseous, it’s a wonder he keeps everything down.

Knowing he’s won helps. A lot. Knowing bloody business is done, knowing he’s safe—it’s enough to send Shiro’s cool head packing. He lets fade his mental tally of hurts, they don’t matter now. There’s vanity to knowing he’s survived again. He’s  _done_ , he’s earned his right to live, and now all that remains is to unmake someone who deserves it. Now, Shiro has the time, and when wrath opens its mouth from somewhere inside him, he doesn’t argue. Adrenaline has a way of turning heady once fear is stripped off, and Shiro’s too far gone not to do what he wants.

Nikta whimpers with his intestine in his hands. He struggles upright, but Shiro plants one heavy foot between his shoulderblades and shoves him back down.

Oh, the crowd  _loves_ that. They’ve been loving  _all_ of this, Champion is a hero to them right now.

He feels like one.

He feels like one.

But it hits like a train that the quisling fuckers love Nikta, also.

Shiro always respects it when a fighter pleads pardon. Some others don’t. But Shiro’s never argued, not ever. No matter who he’s fighting, and Shiro’s fought some bad people.

_Can’t save all of them._

But his patience is gone and that’s his blood all over the floor and  _he deserves it_

Nikta won’t be pleading, today. Shiro owes this crowd a show, he’s not done before he gives it. And he will. He’ll give them such a sight no one will care he’s not stopping until it’s already done.

Nikta can’t come back.

_Some, if they could, they’d be thanking you when you come round to calling it quits._

But Nikta isn’t any dog beaten mean. He isn’t mad, he isn’t mindless, and if the ring has hurt him, Shiro doesn’t care. Nikta is a thinking, feeling person, who decided to do everything he did.

And Shiro is a thinking, feeling person, who has decided to put him down.

There’s no retreat if he does this. He does this and that’s it; he’s  _that_ kind of person. Who murders when he doesn’t have to and what if the next one doesn’t deserve it at all? No one is forcing him, no one’s coercing him. He’ll never be the kind of person who  _wouldn’t_

—None of this is what Shiro’s thinking about. Of  _course,_ he isn’t thinking it. Perhaps, in the future, he’ll consider his soul and wish that he had been. Or perhaps he won’t. And right now, there’s no  _time_ for it, because even as Shiro avoids thinking, Nikta’s shaking hand begins to lift.

Shiro pounces on it. His numb fingers close on Nikta’s wrist, dragging it back as he hopes no one notices (because no no, Shiro doesn’t contest pardon). His grip strength is absolute  _shit._  Bloody, slippery, nerveless fingers want to fall open, and his fractured wrist should be hurting like hell,

But neck-deep in his golden hour, Shiro doesn’t feel a thing. He sits himself on Nikta’s back, pins the straining hands under his knees. Grabbing up a fistful of fur, Shiro slams the head on the ground, one more time just to keep him quiet. Then he wrenches it straight up

and Shiro takes his blade and he just goes ahead. There’s no time and  _he deserves it._  He can’t come back. Shiro can’t let him.

It’s hard work. Nikta lets out a noise—a  _shrill_ , satisfying, perfect sound that peaks fast, then starts to gurgle. He’s too weak to buck Shiro off, but that doesn’t keep him from trying. Eyes bulging in panic, like they’ll pop out of his head, Nikta begins to snap his teeth. Long, canid,  _terrifying_  teeth clack shut on empty air. Snapping at nothing again and again and again, the last weapon Nikta has left. Past reason, redefining desperation. Nikta wriggles and shudders, and Shiro grits out curses between his teeth for him making this such a  _chore_.

Past trachea, it becomes much easier, and the blood starts flowing in earnest. Thick, fast, it’s even  _red_ , and Nikta’s struggles begin to quiet down.

This is turnabout, isn’t it? It’s some fucked up justice, but that doesn’t mean it’s unjust and doesn’t he deserve it? If it is retribution, then Shiro tries to picture the gladiator he saw Nikta fight. Saw him beat, saw him rape and murder, Shiro tries to give this to them, Shiro tries to conjure them up—

But he didn’t know them, did he? They weren’t anybody, he can’t even remember what they looked like. When he tries to see their face, for some reason, he thinks of Miai instead.

He’s breathing so hard that foam flecks his lips, but he still can’t get enough air. Shiro’s eyes water and spill down his face, his vision blurs out. The sword in his hand is slick and slipping, but he can’t stop now. If he stops now, how disappointing will that be? He can hear them screaming. He can hear Miai, he hears the stranger, he hears a  _thousand people_  up in the crowd, all screaming for Shiro to see this through.

The puddle spreads to his knees, who knew Nikta had that much blood left in him? The slack face tilts farther and farther and farther up.

Nikta’s not coming back. Everything he did to—

Everything he did. Shiro  _can’t_ allow it

Tossing the blade down, Shiro digs his fingers between vertebrae. He stands up, foot placed again, between Nikta’s shoulders. He has to twist it, and wrench it back and forth, and then all at once, Shiro’s stutterstepping backwards with something held to his chest.

His legs make good on their threat, and Shiro lands on his ass in the dirt. He’d thought the head would weigh more.

He draws a breath in, holding it to slowly heave himself up. His knees are shaking so, so bad, he can’t make them still. Shiro has to look down to make sure he’s still got it. There it is, Nikta’s tongue, lolling out of a big clownish grin.

Shiro’s running on empty. He’s  _been_ running on empty, how did he even get here? Things came to this,

he doesn’t know how he got this far.

When he hauls back and tosses the head away, Shiro just about drops. He can’t make out the faces in the crowd, it’s just one solid blob of color but they think he’s the greatest thing they’ve ever seen. Shiro stumbles until facing what he hopes is Zarkon’s box. To lift his ruined arm in salute turns the world gray, but Shiro is beaming. He’s on his feet, he’s cloud-walking. Above all else he  _is,_  while Nikta  _isn’t._

Shiro’s grinning like sunshine and, for the first time in here, he doesn’t need to pretend.

 

***

 

Shiro doesn’t remember greeting his handlers. Neither does he remember being half-carried to medical, where the deepest cuts get stapled closed, and a heavy gel is smeared over the bruising and covered with a wrap. A lot of work is done. It burns hot, like his bones melting.

He definitely remembers when they clean his arm out. They pour something over it, something glowing and boiling and they do things to him that make him scream and scream and

Then he’s standing outside the pens, arm neatly wrapped. Another victory under his belt and a new reality he has to live with. Whether he’s able to consider it or not, he’s turned a corner today.

He totters like a new colt, still wet and blinking in the light. Wobbling though a wide-eyed crowd that flows out of his way.

Ziani appears from nothing, Shiro stutters to a halt. He sees hir flanked by Miai on hir left and Nikta on hir right, staring at him and Shiro burns where he stands.

“-mpion.  _Champion_.” He blinks and Nikta becomes Loekhan. Why he is here, Shiro doesn’t know and cannot care.

Another blink, and Miai’s sad, tearful eyes vanish. Her brown skin becomes blue. It’s someone smaller, though not quite as small as Shiro remembers. She leans into Ziani’s side, and he may just know that face.

Shiro unsticks his feet from the floor. He walks then he falls and hands reach out to take him.

 

 


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So the last chapter sorta wrapped up the first third of this fic. Some could argue therefore, that this chapter should have been taut and exciting and plotty, to get the arc rolling.  
> What this chapter actually is is the exemplification of my UTTER FAILURE at self-discipline. I wrote this thing in short bits during my Surgery rotation and... it kinda shows, because this is ALL about how much it sucks to take care of people.  
> Also, it is LONG. So. SO damn long (and the funny bit is, I cut it in half. Yeah, you’re seeing half; someone come punch me in the face). It’s long and it’s lingering and I can’t chemotherapy it away.  
> The only thing I can say is: if you happen to like longer updates... then please don’t get too used to it? See: previous- These chapters can range from anywhere between (apparently!) over 9000 words, to less than 1000 words. I’m trying really hard not to pressure myself into the mindset of "I can’t post unless it’s long enough!"  
> Anyways... So, yeah. Have a chapter! I finally got to write Loekhan (I LOVE Loekhan, you guys, I’ve been waiting for this). But on that note,  
> The dextrous part at the end of an elephant’s trunk is referred to as a finger. This is a New Thing that I learned for this chapter (color me bemused). Apparently, Asian elephants have one, African elephants have two (which I guess means Loekhan has four).

 

 

When Champion drops after killing Nikta, Loekhan is the one to reach a trunk out and catch him. Stepping forward, Ziani busies hirself unpacking the parcel he came with. Neatly wrapped and slung across Champion’s back, with the strap stapled to his tunic—gel dressings and antimicrobials and not nearly enough of either. Exactly the expected odds and ends to handle half-healed wounds medical can no longer be bothered with. Ze makes quick work of tucking it all under hir tunic and out of sight. The supplies are coveted in here, wouldn’t want anyone getting ideas.

Champion’s head bobs like a doll’s while Loekhan half-drags, half-carries him over to their corner. At Ziani’s elbow, a tanu wrings her hands.

Ziani snaps at her to stop looking like a target, and they reform into fists at her sides. Her back straightens out.

With two walls at their back (and Loekhan himself more than adequate to make a third) and Champion not aware to make report, Ziani strips him down for a full inspection. Ze drops a light song into the air, to keep him still, and begins by unwrapping the dressing on his arm. Ze notes induration and warmth, amid the ragged tramtracking of teethmarks and staples. The dressing gives a faint glow of purple, Ziani takes care not to get any gel on hir hands, wrapping it back up. A ring of bruises wraps his entire shoulder. Stiffness, decreased range of motion. His hands are cool, one bound in a layer of wrapping. When he wakes, they’ll have to check grip-strength in both. The scabs on his knuckles have dirt ground into them. The lines on his palms have dirt ground into them. The crease of his wrist, the quick of his nails—Ziani pictures it sunk into every cartilage and marrow, dirt to weigh him down, dirt to brand the inside of his lungs, just as it did Ziani’s, dirt that won’t leave.

No broken knuckles or dislocations.

Hir palpating fingers find no depressions or large swellings hidden in his dark hair. Bruising surrounds one of his eyes, but there’s no give when hir thumb presses the scraped skin of his cheekbone. Ze tugs up both his eyelids, just to check for any obvious damage (the dark pupils at the centers both constrict on exposure to light, Ziani figures that’s a good sign).

Loekhan levers him mostly upright, as carefully as if he were handling his own calf. Tugging Champion’s suit down to his waist, Ziani unclips the wrap around his abdomen and unwinds it like ze did his arm. Ze notes distension, warmth. Deep bruising—much darker than his shoulder and face—covers much of his front, interspersed with scabbed punctures and stapled lacerations, where Nikta swiped at him and medical cut at him. With some degree of perplexity, Ziani lifts his large hand out of hir way, to inspect the bruises stretching down both his flanks. _Strange_ , because ze knows he wasn’t struck there (ze watched that fight from start to teeth-gritting finish). Ze leans closer, heedless of the waft of Loekhan’s breath on hir face, from where his trunk supports Champion’s shoulders. Ze sees thick splotches of color, like someone blotted a paintbrush covered in _baska_ juice, from beneath his arm to just above his hip. Swelling blunts the hard lines of musculature, and Champion’s skin is quite warm, but there’s no induration when ze presses the area. Ze’s never seen anything like it before, but it makes hir think of blood pooled in his back, and makes hir hope medical didn’t miss it when treating him (Ziani has been the recipient of their slapdash ministrations, and knows just how thorough they often aren’t). Keeping careful control of his head and neck, Loekhan rolls him sideways so that ze can check his back—broad enough to toss bones on and bruised like the rest of him, but thankfully no point tenderness—then ze rewraps the bandage and moves on.

Having dawdled with the strangeness on his flanks, ze finishes the rest up quickly. With his suit rolled down, ze checks his groin and thighs for any swellings or bruising. A hernia is certainly not an uncommon injury around here—fighters seen grimacing when they stand up or sit, a pained hand darting down in atavistic fear of their own viscera popping out. Some of them end up seriously ill, and Nikta kicked him _so_ many times. Ze is glad (if honestly rather surprised) when hir inspection turns up nothing but even skin and coarse, wiry hair.

 _Penetrative,_ ze notes idly, while checking the slit for any blood. And beneath it, an external scrotal sac, which thankfully shows no hematoma. There is an off-color joke, poised on the tip of Ziani’s tongue. But hir sister is sitting _right there_ , scrunched up like a dead bug, and a face like she’s sucking on citrus. Ziani might be used to these sights and smells, the indignities of a body in recovery, but a tanu, less so. Asking for humor might just push her into a heart attack.

Loekhan wouldn’t laugh and Champion isn’t awake to be scandalized, so Ziani keeps hir smirk private and hir song uninterrupted. But ze can’t help the twitter of mischief that skips into hir next refrain, bouncing the melody upward (it makes hir feel better at least).

Working hir hands down both his legs, ze notes one knee is swollen larger than the other. Now, that has hir teeth gritting in worry, because it will either turn out to be nothing, healing fine in a day or two, or it will reveal itself as something worse, and Champion could be facing a very real detriment to his mobility.

Tune never faltering, Ziani scrubs a hand along the side of hir crest. Ze gives the knee a poke, irritated with it for not just being healthy, and of half a mind to threaten that it had _better_ turn out to be nothing at all.

The stupidity of that thought makes hir turn again to where hir sister has watched these whole proceedings without a word. Shriveled and wide-eyed, and now with her mouth hanging indecently open.

Ziani gives her shoulder a shove.

A tanu’s jaws close with a _click_ and her eyes skitter for something useful to do. She drops a hand to Champion’s bare hip, an embarrassed display of readiness for whatever order she hopes to receive. But the other hand sneaks up to knuckle at the corner of her mouth. Ziani swallows a snort.

Ignoring for now, hir sister’s gawking, Ziani concludes hir survey with an examination of consciousness. Ze halts the song, and a tanu helps hike his suit back up around his hips and waist while they wait a tic for the soporific to dissipate. He doesn’t respond to his name, or to any other verbal stimuli, not even spoken directly into his ear. But when ze grabs the thin skin inside his elbow and twists, that earns some squirming. A low moan and a weak attempt to pull the limb away. _Good_ , ze thinks, _someone’s home_. Ze would most like to wake him up and get his own firsthand assessment of his condition. Twisting harder, ze leans in, watching him suck in a breath—

Champion rattles like a plume of dead leaves kicked high in the air. The coughing makes Ziani jump, only now realizing how tense ze’d been. The first cough jolts him, but the rest are a poor effort. Not enough breath behind them, more a nudge than a hack, but there’s still a clot of sputum on his chin when he’s finished. Brown-gray, the color of arena dirt, with a thin lace of foam. Ziani thinks of hands and places and branding and no hope and thinks _yes, get it all out_. Ze wipes his mouth with the edge of his tunic. His eyes, opened to slits while he’d shuddered, slide slowly closed without ever acknowledging hir.

Well, they’ll talk later then. Releasing his skin, ze gives Champion a long onceover, one last look from head to toe. Satisfied that at least ze has a good picture of what there is to worry about, ze nods an assent and a tanu helps to dress—

A bell clangs overhead. A tanu jumps, and Champion’s head nods on her shoulder. Ziani’s crest lifts in surprise. _Water._ The hop is coming by with water, more time must have passed than ze thought.

Gladiators flow toward the front like scum circling a drain. While one hand holds Champion slumped upright, Ziani fumbles hir suit with the other, until ze coaxes hir chip out of its seam. Loekhan drops his into hir opened palm, and ze digs out Champion’s too, before slapping the whole lot into hir sister’s outstretched hands.

“Go on,” ze jerks hir head towards the slowly swelling clot of bodies crowding for the hop. “Don’t talk to anyone, just hand these over for scanning. Don’t forget to scan your own too, they won’t be back again today. It’ll be heavy, but don’t drop it. If anyone offers help, just say you’re alright and don’t make eye contact. Mind yourself, don’t be rude to anyone.”

Ze has to stop hirself from babbling, ze’s probably making a tanu nervous. “Grab yours,” ze watches a tanu’s unpracticed hands tug and yank at her uniform, until her chip slides out of its seam and she’s holding all four. “Alright, don’t lose them. Hurry up, the line’s already long.”

Hir sister scrambles to her feet and Ziani calls, “We can see you from here, we’ll watch you.” _Don’t worry._

A tanu’s long crest bobs behind her, swishing green and blue as she jogs off, and her broken tail sticks straight out. Ziani’s breath catches, shuddering on its exit. Ze turns to Loekhan who nods once and directs both eyes to the bobbing blue head. Champion’s suit edge is crumpled in hir fist, wrinkling from too tight a grip. Ziani unclamps hir fingers to pull it up around his shoulders. The heavy muscle on Champion’s left arm bulges as Ziani bends his elbow this way and that, to force it through its sleeve. The other sleeve is gone; medical went ahead and cut it off, and his bandaged hand passes easily through the hole left behind. Ze tugs the suit’s flap across the scarred span of his chest and methodically closes each and every clasp, individually from his hip all the way up to his neck. Every few tics, ze looks up, searching for a flash of blue feathers. Champion’s collar gives hir a quick blink before the fabric hides it from view as Ziani molds the last clasp together, just below his ear. Ze gives the auricle a flick, just because ze can, and because ze still finds the shape more than a little amusing (hir own external ears seem boring by comparison, barely discernible under the layer of hir down).

With that, ze counts everything tucked safely away from prying eyes, save for the bandaged arm and the bruised face. Carefully, ze smooths his tunic down over his head. Through it all, he never once stirs, and Ziani must suddenly fight off memories of a tiny girl who stirred all too easily. Memories of a small figure, fallen asleep at a scanty meal after working too many vargas, and of the way Ziani’s stick-thin arms would shake when carrying her to their pallet. Trying so, so hard to lay her down without her waking.

Whipcord muscle bunches up as hir fists clench together. Hir eyes dart again to the crowd, where a tanu is carefully balancing all four portions in her arms. Loekhan’s alone would probably be heavy for her, and it crosses Ziani’s mind to get up and help. But the girl is already making her slow way back, and the determined slant of her shoulders keeps Ziani firmly where ze is. And at hir side, Loekhan has both eyes glued to a tanu’s advance, as promised.

Ze regards Champion, still propped up between hir arm and Loekhan’s trunk, and gives his shoulder a light pat. He’s a mess. Ze mentally goes through it again: head, arm, torso, flanks, possible knee. If he’d ruined himself any further, he might have had a chance at going in the ring’s healing pod. For all that it’s always breaking, and hasn’t been updated in decaphoebs, it would certainly be appreciated. Sad to say, but it appears that Champion’s is yet another species that heals by inflammation, not by regeneration. Ze hangs hir head for that. Not that regeneration is a common ability, which it isn’t, but ze hangs hir head for him anyway, and pats his shoulder again. Loekhan lays him flat, trunk dexterously supporting his neck all the way down so Champion’s head touches the floor no more heavily than a feather. As he withdraws, Loekhan taps the trunk along Ziani’s shoulder, and ze ducks down with a sigh, lightly butting hir head against him.

Ziani pulls the meager supply parcel from under hir tunic and sets to organizing, hiding hir smile when a tanu finally returns, brandishing the water like a hunter returning with the head of a wyrm.

 

***

 

Ziani fights anywhere between once every handful of days, depending on hir state of fitness, to multiple times in one day, if there happens to be a feast going on. And unfortunately, feasts tend towards the frequent. The galra have bested every corner of the known universe, their calendar is _brimming_ with holidays.

Kept gladiators hate them. Fights become more frequent, the beasts, more vicious. At the ring, the height of these auspicious days is the Koentak. Thirty-two days (for the thirty-two days of breaking the Koenaethor coalition and markedly increasing the empire’s holdings at that time) during which each arena in each sector of the entire Galra empire musters its gladiators for a new set of games. Broken into quads for group combat, broken into doubles for parallel combat, teamed up into companies and set against the largest, fiercest monsters from every corner of the galaxy, until one quad has distinguished itself above all the others in its sector.

It’s a hugely expensive undertaking. Finding beasts of suitable ferocity, finding gladiators in suitable _number_ , just to fill out the ranks (Koentak requires a veritable army; even if every criminal in the empire were routed to the arenas, most ludi would still wind up chronically understaffed). Hosting so many additional spectators, procuring adequate security, the list goes on. But the ring will have recouped the losses by the end of the first night. GAC may trade hands a hundred times in an evening, but it finds its way to arena coffers eventually.

Ziani has fought through Koentak before. And through many other festivals, sorted into different groups. Ze’s never won, though. No one knows what happens to Koentak’s winners. The career fighters certainly take home a sizeable purse, but the slaves? When slaves win those winners disappear.

Some figure this is how they earn freedom and citizenship.

Some think they’re conscripted into the military.

Some think Emperor Zarkon eats them.

No one knows, but the winners leave and don’t come back and that’s all any kept gladiator knows about it (and Ziani has definitely asked around).

For the sake of cohesiveness, personnel will try to build a quad (or _yoke,_ as is the traditional term) around the lines the fighters have already drawn themselves, established in the cells and pens. And they will bring new gladiators to fill the gaps, and all of this is done long, long before the festival begins.

Thus, with Koentak still a speck on the horizon, Ziani is not terribly surprised to hear that ze will spend these games grouped with Loekhan, who ze has worked with before. And with Champion, who is still so new that Ziani remains his chief associate. Their last member is a yet-unblooded adolescent. Rather young for something as important as the festival, but Koentak needs the bodies. Ziani’s fourth quadmate is to be hir little sister.

 

***

 

When Champion stirs, a tanu watches Ziani greet him with “Well done,” and then, “Back in pen number 1,” and then “Actually, not long; water came once.” Just outside their space, she hovers, summarily ignored, waiting for Ziani to introduce her.

But she might be waiting some time, apparently she isn’t Ziani’s priority. Champion has been awake for a good five dobashes by now, and a tanu is still hovering, awkward and apparently invisible.

“I want you to walk,” Ziani says, while ze gives him a sip of water. “For nautori,” and not a drop is spilled, “and esssshess and galra and most _other_ species I know, the injured who make themselves stand and walk, recover faster than the ones who don’t.” Ze caps the flask with a _click_. “Are your people different?”

A tanu thinks it’s like being a rat again. Ubiquitous and insignificant, completely beneath notice. _Stay quiet,_ her betters are talking.

She hates it.

Champion’s laugh is almost without sound, just a rough, quick breath. “No,” and his bandaged hand labors up to rub at his eye. A tanu fights the urge to wring her own hands, watching his body unwind from the curl it adopted when his sleep turned fitful. “No, we’re the same.” With a rough push, Champion flips himself fully onto his back. The drowsiness and bleary eyes are put aside, as Ziani grasps his good hand in hirs. Palm to palm and sharp right-angled elbows, to haul him upright while his teeth grit together.

Still just an untitled blot in his sightline, a tanu is caught between trying to help and not wanting to touch him. Should she speak up? Koentak is coming, should she tell him now? Isn’t he curious about why she’s here? Does he even recognize who she is? Did he forget about her?

Ziani suddenly jerks hir head, and a rat—no, a tanu—scurries forward, eager to finally be given a job. But Ziani’s look sours, and she realizes the summons wasn’t meant for her. Instead, Loekhan comes forward, to knot a finger in Champion’s tunic and lift him the rest of the way to his feet. With the sudden change in altitude, Champion’s face goes dangerously blank. His knees unlock and he must fumble for Loekhan’s trunk with both hands. Almost hanging, almost like something broken. A tanu cringes. His breath is a hiss and his a face, a mask, and she imagines it must frighten him to have Loekhan’s strength so close.

“Alright,” Loekhan murmurs, with the edge of his tail curled around a tanu’s ankle. “Calm, now. Alright,” but without Ziani’s help (or hers, she could do it, she could even do it better), Champion can’t understand what he’s saying.

Loekhan bears the suspicious glaring of their yoke’s ailing fourth, until Champion is semi-stable, leaning on Ziani. Then he swiftly steps backward (flowing, not lumbering, which a tanu still finds incongruous). He only takes the time to run his retreating trunk along Champion’s shoulder. A brief soothing motion that makes the recipient’s face flicker in confusion.

Then Ziani catches her eye and _finally,_ a tanu scurries forward. Only to be wordlessly directed to Champion’s other side. Still sans any verbal acknowledgment at all, she realizes her purpose here is to serve as an armrest, so that Loekhan can have both hands and both trunks free, to guard them from any opportunists. 

Such is one of the worries they must balance, in deciding to get Champion moving so soon. A tanu knows it would be preferable (in every way), for him to huddle in this corner and lick his wounds in private. Behind the security of Loekhan and Ziani, and only reemerge once he’s recovered. But he _won’t_ recover without getting up and moving around. Without filling his lungs and getting his blood flowing. His convalescence will only grow, the longer he waits to brave the pain and _move._

They need him sound as soon as possible. Koentak is coming, whether he’s ready or not, and fairly soon their quad will start matching together in preparation.

With her side bracing his (she’d have been too short for this, last time she saw him), and her eyes turned downward, she has no way to know whether Champion even looks her way. But her slightness must be less unsettling than Loekhan’s bulk (or maybe he does recognize her? Just a little? Maybe she is calming for him, but maybe she is just overly hopeful), because if he finds any part of her noteworthy at all, he certainly doesn’t say so.

Ziani gives Champion a onceover, crest fluttering on hir head. “The damage,” ze mutters, “seems to be mostly… central.” Ze waves a vague hand to his torso and whatever internal anatomy might be there. “How is that treated, where you used to live?”

“Uhm.” He shrugs one shoulder and his whole body sways. A tanu stabilizes her hand at the small of his back. “Pain management. So we c-… can breathe and walk normal.” His own breaths do not seem normal at all. Short, quiet panting, only audible because of her proximity. “Keeps fr- _shit-…_ from getting pneumonia.” With his trembling hand on her shoulder, the sliver of bare skin at the tip of his thumb presses into her neck and teaches her bacteria proliferating in underventilated air sacs. Debilitating weakness. Wet breathing and the demise of the elderly. “Nothing special. Time and—” his side gives a small jerk with every hitch, “—pain management.”

Watching how he totters on his feet, Ziani quirks hir crest upward. “Well. Manage your pain, then.”

Another noiseless laugh through clenched teeth. “Yeah,” he grumbles off the insult and a tanu wants to pretend he isn’t already a little heavier than he was a tic ago. She hopes he isn’t trying to stall (they’re going to make him walk either way; better to hurry and get it over with). But Champion squares his shoulders, and that makes her square hers, crest half-raised and resolutely optimistic. It’s just walking, he will do fine.

He does not do fine. At all.

And it’s not that she minds people seeing how he leans on her. That is not so incriminating—a pretense of fond feelings, and a tanu doesn’t mind pretending he thinks more of her than he actually does. But the slowness of his shuffling. The length of his steps, which is shorter than the length of his feet. Each time he lets Ziani go, so his good hand can fly to his ribs. That it takes him a dobash to advance just a meter.

 _These_ are the things that will give people ideas. These are the reasons a tanu is so determinedly avoiding the eyes of the patchy-scaled creature across the room, who keeps tilting their head to watch.

“Come on,” she mutters. It comes out shy and half-hearted but she just wanted to feel more useful.

But Ziani’s orders slice the air. “Pick your head up,” ze hisses, from Champion’s other side. “Walk faster.”

“L-lose m-… balance.”

“Then lose it. We’ll keep you from falling.”

Champion pushes harder, leans on them heavier. She can hear his breath sticking in his chest; a tanu’s clenched jaw is beginning to ache.

Ziani says, “You look weak, straighten your back.” Champion stiffens with a short grunt. “No, straighten all the way.”

A tanu had hoped he’d be happy to see her. This isn’t what she envisioned. His dark eyes are wet and he’s hurting so much and maybe she should have just said ‘hello.’

“Breathe deeply, you’re panting. Head up.” Ziani’s orders leave her no room. “ _Up,_ do as I tell you.”

Champion sets one stubborn foot in front of the other.

“Head up,” ze threatens, “or I’ll let you fall.”

His head bobs up like a cork on water. A tanu almost smirks.

Then pretends not to see the drop of moisture track down his cheek. His head tilts until he’s eyeing the ceiling, as thought petitioning some deity to just get this over with. A tanu hopes Ziani was just bluffing. All the work they’re doing to keep his feebleness as secret as they can, ze had _better_ have just been bluffing.

She hates this. This was a terrible idea. Their goal is only to walk to the far wall and back. Barely anything, but they aren’t even halfway and she can already feel things coming to a head.

Ziani hisses demands. Champion’s breath-control deteriorates, and her hands form into fists in his tunic, unable to believe just how exposed she feels. _Please try,_ she wants to beg. _Walk_ , _please just try._ She knows Loekhan keeps guard at their back and she knows they’re in a public place, but even still, they make a slow-moving easy target. If someone jumps them, will Loekhan’s speed be enough? And that’s just it, they _are_ in a public place. If they push too much and this whole room sees Champion fall flat on his face, then what do they do about that?

Ziani’s insistence prods like a physical force. “Faster,” so Champion puts his head down and works his feet. “Head up,” and he lurches upright. “No, breathe deeply,” it rattles in his chest like a whistling wind, and then “No, don’t slow down,” and

 _Ziani, shut_ **_up_** , she wants to scream. How can this be so hard?

It’s damp on her shoulder, where Champion’s palm is sweating through its wrappings.

“Come _on,_ ” she says again, trying to tug him along faster. _Walk! Damn you, just walk_

The little trek seems to take years. She’s exhausted by the time she and Ziani are controlling Champion’s collapse into something more dignified. A tanu breathes through an open mouth, pressing a hand to his chest until his weight is leaned back on the wall instead of on her. She tosses his sweltering arm off her neck, letting it _thud_ down to the floor, so she can get up to go sit on Ziani’s other side.

Ziani’s sharp look makes her skin prickle. She just frowns and hunches her shoulders. His eyes are hardly open, he _still_ hasn’t even bothered to talk to her.

“That… actually was better than I expected.” Ziani runs a quick hand over Champion’s head, where his crest would be. Sweat makes his hair stand up, almost like he has one. “You can rest awhile, now.” Champion lowers his head at the touch, strength devastated from simply walking back and forth. Hir hand on him is nothing but gentle and a tanu feels like an oaf. She’s so _stupid,_ she hates that she got angry, none of this is how she imagined.

With a voice that could command mountains out of hir way, Ziani tacks on, “Then we’ll do it again.”

 

***

 

“You couldn’t—”

“I was.”

“You’re… a foot taller.”

A _foot_ taller? Ziani quirks hir head. What’s that supposed to mean?

Champion had taken the news of Koentak without issue. But hearing he was now part of a yoke, and would be until the festival ended, had made him whip his head up to where Loekhan stood looming. Even before Champion could finish tensing up, Loekhan wordlessly dropped to his front knee in a graceful bow, extending a trunk. And after letting it hang in the air for an awkward span of tics, Champion reached up and grudgingly clasped it in his hand, finally bringing their tenuous four-way truce to official maturity.

A few vargas later they did walk him again, just like ze’d warned. Or rather, Loekhan walked him again, with the two nautori hanging back as escort because Champion would have to resign himself to Loekhan’s nearness sooner or later.

Now, with her earlier smattering of bad behavior forgotten (or perhaps in an effort to _make_ it forgotten), Ziani’s sister sits by Champion’s head, taking her turn to speak. And speak. And speak.

“You remember that melee, don’t you? You had just earned your name from Myzax’ defeat.” She is smiling.

Champion's eyes have settled at half-mast, but he returns the offered smile. “Yeah, of course.” Of course he remembers. Ziani thinks he will remember that day a long time (barely inducted into the arena and he’d already lived through flouting a mandate). “And there’s no damn way.” Smiling he may be (and yes, Ziani has learned that this look for him _is_ a smile), but he’s definitely tired out. His match day with Nikta was one for the books, and his post-match day has been packed with new information to assimilate, new pains to handle, and Ziani hirself, unapologetically forcing him to move around. Ze knows he wasn’t prepared for how walking would exhaust him.

Ziani’s sister sits back on her heels. Her tail is short and crooked, jutting out in a broken line. She flares her crest and spreads her arms, giving Champion a good look at her. “I suppose I must have grown some,” she smiles.

She’s showing off, isn’t she? Measuring her words. Pitching her voice to be melodious and teasing and very grown-up (Ziani flips hir crest skyward, suppressing a groan; Reizolm give her _some_ decorum). She’s enjoying the chance to rewrite his first impression of her, when she’d been weeping and frightened.

A tanu extends slim fingers to Champion’s shoulder. His flinch is sharp but she does not startle. “That day isn’t something I like to remember. But I do.” Her hand rests steady, a point of stillness to hush his shiver and Ziani thinks of a damper laid against a ringing gong. The quiet grace of hir sister’s movements drives an arrow through hir irritation. Ze watches with pang of wistfulness that hir bright girl couldn’t grow up amid the painted halls and chiming bells, with a thousand-fold followers to give her comfort to.

Here in the dimness, she hushes the trembling of a single slave.

If their people still stood, what would she have been? “I remember you being there.” Her words hang in the air, weightless and shimmering, what manner of sage would Ziani’s sister have made? “You lifted me and carried me out. Yes, it was me.” Her voice chimes for them, a clear bell in the quiet dark.

“But—” Champion’s weary rasp sounds all the uglier, and Ziani’s imaginings melt away. “No, but… How long has it been? You’re—” he tries to clear his throat, “an actual foot taller, how th-… ’s been what? Weeks? A month?”

There was not a single part of that statement that made sense. That’s the second time he’s mentioned feet. But the girl hasn’t somehow stopped having two, and that’s not even how he’s using it. He says it’s been a month? His home moons must turn slowly. And what a _week_ is…

Ziani lets it go. He’s tired.

But Champion murmurs, “No,” in answer to his own question. And, very quietly, “Has it?…” Relinquished from his sagging mouth, the words wisp upward like smoke from an alter. Left behind on the ground, Champion shrinks inward, hollowed out and so very breathless. Ziani can recognize the look, from many faces before his.

Champion is wondering whether he’s begun to lose track.

It’s often said how time can blur. They pass a few breaths in silence, while Champion mourns his. Ziani has seen the cramped tallies some others try to keep, and sees that, in the recent to-do, Champion’s has no new mark for today.

Ze knows it’s a strange grief to soldier through.

Champion blows out a long breath, squeezing his eyes shut for just a tic, to put that grief away. The gesture is stolid but its effect is rather undercut, when breathing deep just sets him to coughing. Head turned into his shoulder, Ziani sees more dusty sputum appear on his tunic. _Good._ It has to come out, as much as he can.

“You were…” Thick like treacle, his voice starts and then halts, as though he expects they’ll talk over him. They do not. Laboring his head up off the floor, Champion squints hard like he’s wondering how to put this,

“Small,” sinks like a stone, drowned in bathos.

And a tanu’s quiet dignity derails. “Not _that_ small.” Her frown is hilarious.

Crest curling merrily upward, Ziani chuckles into hir hand, and a tanu rounds with a glare like a slighted monarch.

She’s still so young. Grown she may nearly be, and gifted with mysticism beyond what Ziani can grasp, but she isn’t ready for Ziani to stop worrying for her (Ziani isn’t ready either). The glare persists, hot and offended, until ze flattens hir crest in surrender and clamps hir mouth shut.

Champion watches their interaction with a smile. Why is he smiling, it’s not _his_ sister. Ze thinks it stupid of him, to be talking instead of resting. He needs rest so very much. Ze might try to influence him towards it, except he’d probably take to that none too kindly. And he’ll probably soon drop off on his own, judging by the fog in his eyes. The sooner he rests, the faster he recovers, the sooner he stops being a liability to guard.

Shaking off embarrassment like a courser shakes off water, a tanu flips her long trailing crest over her shoulder. She speaks slowly, as though to an especially foolish devotee. “I was small, but I wasn’t an _infant_. Regardless, I’ve grown since then, that’s why they moved me here.”

Seemingly interested, Champion pushes himself upright. But his torn arm gives out halfway and his whole body lurches back down. Ziani manages to slip a palm underneath his head before it hits metal. No point in damaging him further. He has to cough again but, with his chest locked tight with pain, it’s a weak effort that brings nothing up. When he’s finished, “How long does your species live?”

The rude question leaves the nautori blinking. But from the edge of their corner, Loekhan’s ponderous voice turns the insult around, wondering does Champion even knows the galra calendar yet? Loekhan has tucked his feet beneath him (each larger than Ziani’s head) and wrapped the plume of his tail around himself, breathing softly through one trunk while the other remains safely curled up. He keeps a watchful eye on the room.

And he’s quite right, it would do little good to explain ages in units Champion’s never heard of, so Ziani spends the next span of dobashes, watching him and hir sister dither about— _a ‘day’ is between meals, so… (’Kay)—the overseer used to keep months (Mmhm)—say, half-again the time since we last saw each other. Champion? Champion (Sure, yeah)_ —trying to find a time-slice that they both understand. A tanu is patient with Champion’s answers. Their words travel along asymptotes in the air, always _just_ missing each other’s ken. Ze thinks perhaps the two will make friends. Champion, once he is well, will be a powerful friend for a tanu to have. While Ziani doesn’t _want_ to foster hir sister’s loyalty to him (because it’s dangerous, it’s so very dangerous), ze will gladly encourage the opposite.

When they figure their calculations— _seven_ of his years, apparently—the answer makes Champion’s eyes widen. Ziani wonders why; what are his years worth, so far from their sun?

Ze isn’t at all prepared to learn that Champion comes from a species whose lifespans stretch nearly fifteen times that of the nautori.

 _Fifteen._ Times. It lands like a blow to the gut. Their entire race is as children to his.

Ziani scowls and turns away. The insult isn’t a new one, ze knows that. Many other peoples haven’t yet left childhood in the time that hirs are born, grown, and died. In hir youth, Ziani never thought to ask, but ze thinks it’s because of their voices. Slight stature, speeding metabolisms, and their powerful, will-warping voices. They burn hotter and faster than the dull creatures that surround them.

 _Not Ziani, though._ An oft-repeated whisper gnaws at hir thoughts. Not too-tall, too-broad, backwards, _shameful_ Ziani, whose mother had to bear hir, and whose bearer never got to _be_ hir bearer, and whose father was not nautori at all but that hadn’t saved him when the galra came. No, not Ziani, who is blessed by neither ymma nor aja, but who, by some cruel joke of fate and genetics, may still be living, whole and hale, when hir sister is long dead and gone.

And—ze drops hir head—whose sister isn’t even hir sister. Ziani calls her that but they’re of no relation. Ziani may be old enough to be her bearer (but then, a tanu’s soul is old enough to be hir grandmother’s grandmother, though Ziani will keep that secret for as long as ze can). When Ziani first saw her—holy nautori features among a sea of aliens—it sparked a stirring. A swell in hir chest of some pure, formless emotion; Ziani snatched the little girl up, and has done everything to try and keep her close.

A tribeless Seer and an indentured mutt, and for all Ziani knows, they could be the last nautori left.

Ze makes hirself stop thinking of that. To think like that makes hir angry, and anger is of no use to looking after both hir sister _and_ a downed Champion. With an efficiency born of practice, ze puts them all away—hir mother, hir bearer, hir father, all hir people, on all sides. Shuts them all up, a banked fire ze doesn’t need right now. Right now, Ziani is sitting on the floor. With hir yoke who need hir protection, and the new knowledge that yet another species is privileged with longevity denied the nautori. What’s that to hir? It doesn’t make much difference.

Hir sister, who has little to no memory of life outside this ship, is less inured to the reality, “Your people,” she starts, “obviously age… slower. But. _How_ long did you say you’ll live?”

Having to confirm it makes him look pained, and Ziani bristles—a tanu doesn’t need pity from him for the way she is. Ziani thinks to cuff him on the head for his rudeness, but ze doesn’t dare.

Doesn't bother.

…

Doesn't dare.

Wounded on the floor, but he is still Champion.

How _small_ they must seem to him. Champion shuts his eyes, either because his arrogance finds their existence just that saddening… or because he’s losing his fight with sleep. They’ve been talking for some time.

A tanu considers him, this long-lived creature before her. “How much of your life, before you’re mature?”

“Uhm.” His eyes flutter as his mind slogs through the question. “Twenty?… So…” It takes him a long time. “A fifth?” And finally, Ziani sees him fading. “Yeah. Yeah, ’s a fifth.” Champion’s eyes slowly fall shut, perhaps dreaming of his sun.

Twenty of their years, a fifth of their long lives. Ziani chews on that. Three generations of nautori, born, lived, and died, all in the time that this one had still been a pup. How helpless are they?

Emptied of questions, Ziani’s sister lowers her eyes. Unprompted, she lifts Champion’s head and sets it on her legs, resettling with her back to the wall. Champion doesn’t stir.

A long pause goes by, where Ziani just stares over hir own folded hands, at the ongoing activity beyond hir raised knees. Ze spots Sunkatur and Dotar glancing over, but both keep their distance.

“It took him long enough, didn’t it?” a tanu whispers.

And Ziani turns in surprise, to see her motion to where Champion sleeps. “Were you trying?” Ze hadn’t even heard her.

But a tanu shakes her head. “Once or twice, earlier today. To see if I could make him sleep. But,” she gestures helplessly at herself, shamed by her own underdeveloped ability.

Ziani nods, “I know,” and pats her shoulder, secretly praying the first song comes to her sooner, rather than later. Still, “I wouldn’t try it here, though.” Which is a touch hypocritical, when Ziani was so cavalier about singing earlier today. “He’s attentive, it may not work on him. And he’d be very offended to learn that you tried.” Ze lets hir hand weigh heavy on hir sister's shoulder, “So don’t, alright?”

A tanu holds hir gaze then nods, seriously, before she turns back down to the still-sleeping Champion.

They make for quite the sight. A ring victor of growing infamy, curled in the stick-thin arms of an adolescent orphan. The nautori are disappearing, she may be the last Seer ever born. But instead of a life of solemnity and holiness, she sits in a corner, clutching a Galra slave who will never pay her any homage, but who has already gifted her with every breath she still breathes.

Eyes hard in her smooth face, a tanu guards him closely. And Ziani guards them both.

 

***

 

Champion dozes. They wait, with nowhere they have to be. But he surprises them when Ziani looks over to see his eyes open again. Ze thought he’d be out until rounds.

“You know, I stretch further than that,” a tanu tells him, after he shakes his head at an offering of water. “I said how old we grow. But my life experience stretches longer.” Out of nowhere and before Ziani can stop her, she is already saying it. “I have all the last five generations in me. I am a Seer.” Blurting out the secret Ziani would rather they keep because they have so little left that the galra haven’t touched.

Champion’s eyes narrow, tired and bemused. “I don’t know what that means.” The short sleep has turned his voice even rougher.  

Ziani squirms beside this unwelcome intimacy, ze doesn’t want this spoken of. What is it to Champion, the rites of a culture he neither knows nor cares to know? Armed with voice and wisdom, the Seer would have served as protector for every tribe and every house. That would have been her life, before the galra closed in. Why should Champion hear what doesn’t belong to him?

Ziani wonders if there are any free nautori left at all.

To see hir sister curl in on herself is to see their collapse played out in full. “I can’t always… access it. And I-… Still, I suppose,” she ducks down. “I suppose five generations of us probably means nothing to someone like you.”

Champion looks lost. “Not nothing,” he tries. “No, that’s. That would—” He tries to roll over, to shift his position. But the twist of pain on his face makes Ziani think he’s reconsidered. He must be hurting a great deal, ze hasn’t seen him scan the room once since he woke. But hurting a great deal will be his norm for the next days, that can’t be helped. “Thirties?” he mutters. And he smiles up at Ziani’s sister. Not in the worshipful way of a visiting pilgrim, but it is a smile nevertheless. “That’s older than I am, that’s not nothing.”

And Ziani’s mind is rocked for the second time today. The way he fights. The way he speaks. The unearned longevity his species enjoys. Ziani had just assumed Champion to be

Older.

But he’s not exceedingly far out of childhood himself, then. 

Ziani is glad ze didn’t hit him earlier, because now he’s the one who seems so pitiable. If he does not die in a fight, then Champion’s life as a Galra slave will stretch very, very long indeed.

His rest that first night is fractured. Sometimes he wakes up groaning, when the ache becomes too much to sleep through. And whenever he wakes, it is to a tanu curled around him, trustingly near, implicitly fond (with time, she will learn better). 

A tanu guards him closely.

Ziani stays awake and guards them both.

 

***

 

It would not be out of line to ask _what_. in any _hell_ is Ziani thinking?

To allow hir only sister anywhere near Champion, after his last mad dog showing in the ring. He sawed through the head of a living being, then he sawed through the the head of the corpse. Just because he couldn’t think of any reason not to. Champion hasn’t brought up Nikta at all, and Ziani hopes that is because the memory troubles him, and not because it doesn’t.

Ziani makes no affectations to sainthood, ze can’t pretend to mourn Nikta (but there are others who do, and that could make itself a problem). But maybe ze is an idiot for not being more wary. Ziani let him lie here with his head on hir sister’s lap, this person who saws off heads. Maybe that’s some kind of obscenity.

All ze can offer is that ze remembers how he felt when he did it. Out in the ring, he was almost too far away, but ze could still catch a trace. Just a flicker of the monstrosity he brought to bear. And ze can neither condone nor condemn, ze _knows_ what it’s like out in the ring (but Nikta’s people surely said similar of him. And they can’t have missed how Champion didn’t wait before beginning his defilement). But whatever its implication, ze knows full well how he felt then.

And it was nothing like the way he feels now.

And in truth, that is the sum total of reasoning Ziani can give—ze doesn’t think him mad, doesn’t think him mercurial. Ze isn’t afraid of the person he is now, and ze keeps faith that he will at least not change faster than ze can get a tanu away from him.

 

***

 

It’s the middle of the fourth night. A tanu is beside Loekhan, they’re using his tail to block out the lights overhead, but Ziani can’t sleep. And, unable to get any comfort, wounded as he is, Champion shifts between dozing and drowsing. Once tonight, Ziani has heard the frustrated sound of a near-sob, as he just tries and tries to sleep. 

When he whispers, “Why are you doing this?” ze misunderstands. All the day long, ze had been pushing and pulling at him, making him bite his lips and hold back cries. So, _it’s for your own good,_  ze starts to say, until ze realizes that his question is more charitable. That that’s what he means.

Champion lays on his side, shoulders hunched up around his ears, with his good hand carefully stabilizing the opposite elbow. In a few dobashes, he will likely roll over again, still in search of a position that won’t hurt. In a distantly dejected corner of hir mind, Ziani wonders when he’ll pick up an infection.

With that sobering thought ze takes his bad arm in hand and begins unwrapping, to change the dressing again.

Ze considers his charitable question. Why do this? Hir trust in his continued sanity has made hir unafraid, but why do all this? Because they are yoke is too little an answer; Ziani could probably keep him alive, doing less than ze has done. Why all this?

There is something at play here that Ziani has encountered before. Has flirted with and danced with, and had it kick hir to the floor, left broken and abandoned. Something that has been trying ever so slowly to dig its claws into hir again, starting from the day Champion held hir sister aloft in the face of Zarkon. Champion may be staring down infection, but Ziani is already sick with one of the worst aliments a person can get.

“Why?” He stares with dark eyes, weary but wary. It’s the crux and summation of life lived inside these walls. Why take care of anyone else, much less him?

Ziani opens hir mouth

_Because you helped my family._

_Because I first found your defiance inspiring._

_Because I enjoy the colorful visions you give me of home._

_Because I want myself and sister endeared to you._

_Because you saved her life._

And tells the truth,

“Boredom, mostly,” ze holds his hand in place over the loose end of a gauze, as ze begins to wrap. “This isn’t something I do very often—hold that there for me. And—any new pain here when I press?—my routine could use a change of scenery.”

He gives a chuckle, disbelieving. Ziani’s smiling mouth echoes the sound, for something to share. Very quiet, it doesn’t last long. Gone well before Ziani has finished subduing his arm into another stifling layer of packing and dressings.

“Besides,” ze sits back and folds hir hands, “We’re yoke now. If you can’t fight, you’ll drag me down with you.”

He likes that answer a bit better. It’s a bad, wrong answer, but it’s a simple one, so he likes it.

But despite his disbelief, the adage—the one that draws a groan from lagging children everywhere—is true, at least a little: a change is as good as a rest. So today, Ziani is building instead of breaking. Ze doesn’t tell him anything more.

_Because someday you’ll fight me, and I want my life to matter to you._

_Because someday you’ll fight me, and I want to know your weaknesses._

_Because for some strange reason, you give me hope that tomorrow could be better than today was._

_You’ve made me sick._

 

***

 

The next morning, his skin temperature is elevated and he does not respond when Ziani calls his name.

 

***

 

A tanu has learned the way of living in the pens, waiting for her first fight with her yoke. She thinks that’s the main difference from life as a rat: more waiting. She has much less work to do, so Ziani has made her train, and as fear slowly becomes banal, she almost, _almost_ has a chance to settle and find her feet.

Until Champion takes ill and that chance evaporates.

They’ve been trying to feed him. Trying. “Drink, then,” Ziani says for the hundredth time. 

He shakes his head. As soon as they prodded him awake, a tanu knew he’d be trouble. His eyes opened but he didn’t say anything. She asked if he was alright. Nothing. She asked if he knew where he was. Nothing. “Alright,” she’d said, feeling awkward. “Alright, but it’s time for food, now. Just eat and drink, and then you can go back to sleep.”

If only. As soon as water touched his lips, _then_ he began responding. And she said to him, “No, no, wait. Drink. Please?” But he wouldn’t hold still. “Alright, we’ll try a little later.” But then, maybe ten dobashes later, the request “Please, drink,” still only made him turn his head away.

It’s more disquieting than she thought it would be, to speak to someone and be completely ignored. Worse than she’s used to, because back when she was a rat running around the ring, at least then she _knew_ where she stood beneath notice. But when Champion talks over her, it’s not to her betters, but to ghosts that aren’t there. And she can’t understand him. One word in ten, four words in twenty, that’s the best she can do, his speaking is all nonsense, his mind has been replaced with something murky and sick; a tanu _cannot understand him_ and that’s a terror she’s never met before.

At least a varga after that, she came back at it, to try again. She now knows this was very stupid of her, because Loekhan isn’t here. He left to talk with one of own friends, the people he still has outside of this yoke. She should have thought of that. But Ziani was willing to try, and they both had hope that maybe he wouldn’t be needed. A shared exhaustion weighed down their shoulders and they tried to agree, maybe Champion was done acting out.  

“Do you want a drink now?” A tanu echoes Ziani's words. “Or food?” This time, when Champion gives his nonsense reply, there is exactly one point at which his mind aligns in adequate synchronicity of purpose for her to actually understand. She offers food, and this time he yanks loose from her grip and very clearly, Champion screams at her to get the fuck away from him. Loud enough to ring in her ears, close enough to spit in her face. A tanu freezes, holding her breath while she’s raked over coals.

She thinks she’d have long since run if Ziani weren’t here. And yet, Champion has no more respect for Ziani than he does a tanu. He doesn’t want to drink and he won’t listen to the reasons why he _must_ , even if it’s just a little.

But then, without any warning, he calms down. For no reason, no reason at all, he quiets. And she asks, “Are you alright now?” and “You think you can take some water now?” and “Just a little, alright?” and he doesn’t answer any of it. But even though he still fidgets like there are insects under his skin, he _does_ take just a few sips and he _doesn’t_ speak any of his nonsense. A tanu makes the mistake of relaxing. Ziani is holding his shoulders back against the wall, and a tanu keeps the flask at his mouth, and he fidgets and fidgets and fidgets. She lets out her breath.

But an arm comes flailing at her face. A wild flash in her periphery, a breeze on her cheek and what in _hell_ was that?

She barely ducked, she didn’t realize he’d still be so fast.

Something in her head feels like it might burst; he just tried to hurt her. Champion tried to hurt her, she never thought he would do that and all she did—the _only_ thing she’s done all this time—was try to give him water. This is Champion, she believed he wouldn’t.

And she tells herself it’s not his fault, he doesn’t know what’s happening (as she’s been telling herself for over a varga). But his blank eyes are scaring her and the look on his face pulls her in a hundred different directions. She _has_ to make him drink, he needs to get better but he fights every time. He will hurt himself like this, she doesn’t want him to hurt himself, she doesn’t want him to hurt her. She wants to just back away until he’s calmed down, but they _can’t_. He’s acted up every single time. They need to do this, they can’t keep trying to wait him out.

“Please, now.” He seems to know it’s just water. It’s not that he’s afraid but he _still_ won’t quit moving. “It’s alright, I promise.” She tries holding his head, bringing the flask close, but “Wait. Wait don’t do th- nono, wait, don’t—”

More water splashes down her front and she fights not to cry because that’s the _only_ water they have, until the hop comes again. Why is this happening? This is _Champion,_ isn’t it? He saved her life; didn’t he carry her?

And it probably makes her an idiot, but a tanu has thought about that every single day, since she saw him. During her canings, when she wasn’t allowed to yell or cry, she told herself it wasn’t forever. Ziani may have left, but someday a tanu would go to the ring. And it would be horrible but Ziani would be there. Champion would be there. And when the caning would end and then she’d cry and cry, she told herself that they were waiting. Ziani was strong enough and Champion was strong enough, and when she joined them, maybe it would keep her strong, too.

She’s spent so long thinking of it. Building it up in her head,

“Hold his arm.”

She wasn’t prepared to be so disappointed.

She hates this. What can she do? And what if she fails? There’s a band around her chest, locking down around her ribs and she can’t breathe. Will it be her fault if he dies? She’s not strong enough, has she _ever_ been strong enough to keep people from leaving? She _hates_ this, she’s sick with it. She didn’t know the first thing about being in here. And he might die because she can’t. do. _any—_

“ _Hey!_ ” Her eyes snap to where Ziani’s practically sitting on top of Champion, while he tries to punch hir in the head. Ziani glares at a useless girl. She’s the one ze’d like to hit— “Grab his arm and hold it, _now._ ”

Pressure in her head cracks open and _fine!_ Fine, then! She yanks Champion’s wrist down to pin it under her foot. _Thunk_. She thrusts her palm against his shoulder to pin it to the wall. _Thud_. If he won’t stop being like this, then she will just have to be worse. The wrap on his arm glows a bright amethyst, like it’s celebrating the agitation all around, but everything for her is _thunk_ and _thud,_ as he wriggles loose again and again, and she gathers him up again and again. For all the world, she’s blind and she is deaf, there’s nothing at all but Champion’s struggles and Ziani’s orders. She forgets to be frightened of Champion’s strength. She forgets to care that he’s hurt. She forgets that this, her life, isn’t his fault (she even forgets that it _is,_ and just how dearly that debt is owed). She forgets what her failure here could mean. Her pathetic doubts and paralyzing reservations, she crushes between her teeth, until all that’s left is what she hates.

She hates the overseer. _Thud._

She hates Ziani, for asking this of her. For a lifetime of harshness and for _leaving_ when she had to stay behind and for every time Ziani didn’t save her from this place. _Thunk._

She hates the saw-toothed creature that tried to eat her. And the galra, for existing. _Thud._

She hates every beautiful sky on every planet, for being something she’s never seen.  _Thunk._

She hates the tears on her cheeks and the crack in her voice, for undermining her merit even now. _Thud._

“And I hate you,” she grits into Champion’s hair, when he tries to headbutt her and misses. Under her breath, so Ziani doesn’t hear it. Just low enough to pass without reproach or correction. “Be quiet. I hate you, be _quiet_.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So yeah.  
> Medicine stuff.  
> Thing 1: Ziani may snark, but "pain management" is code for analgesics. If someone's got fractures, you want them to breathe LOTS. So, to that end, you make sure it doesn't hurt (opiates, NSAIDs, etc.) and you keep them unimpeded (we don't bind fractured ribs anymore). Shiro was not in fact trying to say "On Earth, we just suck it up." XD  
> Thing 2: Shiro's agitated behavior here is actually more typical for an older patient (delirium hits them harder). Most of the younger ones who I've seen get violent, typically aren't just sick, they're also on something. So yeah. Smth to think on.  
> Sorry for all the exposition. Obviously, I *try* to spread it throughout instead of dump it all in one place like a rock. But looking back at previous chapters, I think my occasional hints and clues might not have actually been as useful. Darn it.  
> Here’s hoping you don’t resent me for the “Hey let me tell you about my OC’s alien race...” (I try not to love them, I’m sorry :c ).  
> But I did enjoy ending it on a gentle note... then yanking away, to epiloguify on an angry little beast with a bellyful of disappointment and a big ole list of lessons to learn. XP  
> If I haven't chased you off, and if the universe moves you, please consider leaving a comment.
> 
> EDIT: I meant to say- the weirdness that's got Ziani scratching hir head at the beginning is Grey Turner's sign, in case anyone's interested. Happens with hemorrhagic pancreatitis, but also (more saliently) wiiiiiith *drumroll* blunt abdominal trauma!! I always thought it looked kinda cool (if also indicative of badness)


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We got a new friend!  
> (Fairly on the level, I think. A tiny bit of intimidation and deliberate disrespect for boundaries)  
> Unrelated warning: headcanons. lots of em  
> (and they're weird ones, so if it's not your cuppa tea, i totes understand)

 

Her first spoken encounter comes after days of watching.

The gate closes with a clang, Sunkatur watches the guard storm off.

Champion wipes the red from his mouth. Dropping back into a crouch, he resumes his slack-shouldered talk with the pair of new intakes. Big fighters. “Real” fighters, as though they’re lent some legitimacy by their hulking shoulders and history of service. Sunkatur knows no one’s past matters in here, but she can see in the tilt of their heads and the set of their spines that these two do _not._ Likely, they have debts to pay off.

That’s where many kept gladiators come from. They are the criminals, the captives, and the critically bankrupt. Sunkatur, and others who spend seasons to make it a career, are in the minority. But it’s a good life, for those who can stay alive. The food is shit and the collar is degrading when she has to wear it, but there are perks to the months spent here. The translator installed deep in her neck is one such perk (the only other way she might have gotten one would have been to join the military, and then she’d have just wound up like these two). And when Sunkatur leaves this place, it’s not to be fed to the beasts downstairs. It’s to return to her enjoyable little life, with a purse heavy at her hip.

Out there, she’s law-abiding citizen by the name of Axocan:actith’tal, eeking out a comfortable station. In here, she’s the difference between creatures living and creatures dying. And Sunkatur, it must be said, happens to have a head for this (and the talons and tail and teeth as well). It would be dishonest to say she doesn’t enjoy the power she wields. Dishonest, not to mention ludicrous because there’s no creature alive who wouldn’t get off on being the person Sunkatur is.

Her kingdom is tiny—a single arena, in a single ship, in a single sector of an empire—and tinier still, for having to share it with other ranking favorites.

All the same, kingship suits her.

These older two are smiling, talking about whatever things _real soldiers_ supposedly talk about. The posturing rubs her plates the wrong way, that sort of thing always has. The wild handwaving and the laughing. They’ve certainly never seen Champion fight, or they wouldn’t be talking to him like that.

She climbs to her feet to subtly move closer, tail-tip lightly tapping the ground.

“—You’ve no claws, no crest. You don’t fly, you don’t come into your own at all?”

Champion’s smile belongs on a fool. “Nope. Smallish brown thing with four limbs.”

Her chuckle is quiet. Their stupid laughter is loud. One runs two long tentacles all over Champion’s head and he just _lets_ it. The thing swipes all over his face and shoulders and he just _sits there_ , his smile still locked in place.

“No scales or plating or even a tail. You barely have teeth. _What do_ you offer?”

 _Why don’t they execute you?_ goes unspoken. Sunkatur taps her claws together, thinking them none too subtle with their questions.

“Forget ‘offer,’ how do you even survive your fights?”

“He’s doing it now,” she pipes up. Two heads whip her way, suddenly frowning. She waves her long tail towards them. And smiles her own smile, to see how they side-eye patchy scales and toxic barbs. A tic ago, their gaze slid right through her. But she has their attention now.

“He spins you tales. Shows you he’s toothless. He doesn’t spit acid, he doesn’t throw plasma, he doesn’t shake the ground.” She drops her voice, cultivating a little more drama than she strictly needs to, sidling up behind Champion to tower over his head.

“Many neglect to notice,” Sunkatur claps two hands down on his shoulders, relishing in the fact that he’ll sit still and let her, rather than give ground and appear frightened. Especially not now. She’s not some idiot neophyte, like the one he just let feel him up.

Champion’s pulse drums against her fingers, steady under thick muscle, and Sunkatur feels hot moisture bead up at her nailbeds. “This bruiser—” If she squeezed her hands now, would he drop dead? Would he writhe in pain? Or would his species shrug it off and leave her playing the fool? They’re both gambling, here, and the thrill tickles down her spine, all the way to her dancing tail-tip. “Doesn’t tire.” While she talks him up, her hands begin to knead, nails teasing close while she massages at the knots under his skin. “This one doesn’t _bleed_. Throw him in with his betters, they just dig themselves into the ground. He tangles them up and he runs them dry. I’ve watched.”

On its own, her smile grows uglier. She twists her long neck down, so she can see the edge of his face. “It’s _very_ entertaining. Look at that,” and she points to his temple, above the frozen half-smile he wears. “Guard _just_ gave him that, you saw. It’s already stopped bleeding.”

They crowd up like he’s a show dog, any lingering notion of respectful distance forgotten. Champion GrassSnake lets them peer close. And indeed, it has. A line of brown sits at the edge of his eye, what blood there is has already dried.

Neither of them seems too keen to continue conversation after that. As they stride off, her chuckling follows, spilling between sharp peg-shaped teeth.

A dangerously quiet voice interrupts her.

“Why did you do that?” The Champion’s smile is long gone.

She sniggers. “‘A little brown thing with four limbs.’ Indeed.” Sweeping around his shoulder, she drops to a crouch beside him with her knees up by her ears.

But Champion’s head whips around, and what Sunkatur sees makes her tail involuntarily snap on point. Her spine goes rigid, her knees tighten; it flashes across her mind that she may have miscalculated how far he will tolerate his control challenged.

But then she blinks. And his eyes are icy flatness. Two dark mirrors, good for threatening onlookers with things they don’t want to see. Sunkatur leans her weight on one leg, subtly easing farther out of his space. Behind her, her tail relaxes into a long, low sway, barbs erected and just _begging_ to be tripped over. Crossing her arms in front of her chest, Sunkatur ignores the dampness under her nails, “I imagine you think yourself terribly clever.”

Her voice comes out haughty. Champion’s stillness persists.

She talks a little louder. “I lied. It’s _not_ as entertaining when they underestimate you. What I like, is when you scare them.” She leans forward, weaving her head from side to side because _she_ is not scared of him. At her leering, he doesn’t move a muscle. Champion StoneFace is trying to make her dance in front of a mirror, but she’s only the fool if she can’t get him to move. “I like it when you make them run first.”

And there. A subtle narrowing of his eyes, as his reticence breaks. “Them?” His wrist flaps lazily, pointing a finger toward the direction they disappeared. “You think they’re the type? I don’t.”

Sunkatur’s tail pendulums. He isn’t wrong. They’re old. They’re weathered, they’re haughty. People like them don’t scare. Not until they’re dust to be ground. Her pulse slows a little, to finally have him talking.

“I’m just as comfortable being underestimated.”

Which, she thinks, is just not very sporting. “Suppose I’ve good and ruined that, then.” Her crossed arms fall open. She peels her smile up, letting a few more of her teeth extend. She knows she’s talking more than he is. Clowns talk, kings listen, Sunkatur knows that. But she’s having fun, and stepping on his toes puts her back in a position she’s comfortable being. “Still, you should manage. You are terribly clever.” From his empty face, her words run off him like water, but her place of strength isn’t deterred.

Straightening in one fluid motion, she turns to head off, letting her tail swipe the air dangerously near to his eyes. Like an apparition, the nautori suddenly materializes, sliding past Sunkatur to take hir recently customary place at his elbow. Priggish Ziani, Ziani Corner Throne, Sunkatur figures they have some kind of deal going on. There’s always safety with someone stronger, and Champion Flat Eyes looks like he could be a pervert.

Sunkatur gives a theatrical shudder, plates tinkling along her neck like bells. Whatever fuckery the two get up to, she is _sure_ she does not know.

Turning back over her shoulder, she calls, “I can’t wait to hit the sand with you.”

 

***

 

The first time Shiro hears the phrase, “Grind the dust,” he doesn’t recognize it. Ziani isn’t with him, and without hir, there aren’t many people he can talk to. But it happens on his way out to the ring, a scratchy noise that sounds like a voice, and suddenly his spine prickles.

Halting literally halfway out the gate (a rude behavior, but his handlers haven’t taught him that yet), he looks over his shoulder to see a tall, whipthin figure that makes him first think of an old woman. But with twice as much bone and half as much flesh as any old woman ought to ever have.

They look like a date palm. Were they talking to him?

The date palm is holding a bowl. Long, twisted fingers dip into broth, before flinging themselves high in the air.

Wet spots scatter at his feet, and Shiro’s memory pokes its head out from behind a bush, to whisper that his cousin’s ladle was made of wood, tied with a khadag that matched the sky. In the coming days, Ziani will tell him, “Grind the dust,” and he will tilt his head to ponder.

Right now, he tilts his head also, wondering if he was just blessed and why he was just blessed and why the palm tree with a sandpaper voice isn’t using milk instead?

A shake of his head, and Shiro remodels that whole thought into why is an alien throwing broth at him?

He’s still trying to figure out which question is his real one, when a disgruntled snap tells him his handlers have lost patience, and Shiro steps forward with his hands outstretched. He straps his muzzle onto his own face. Once his wrists are cuffed, the straps are tightened by hid handlers. A leadline _plinks_ against his collar, locking in to yank him forward and then Shiro has more important things to think on than broth or milk or whatever.

The next time he fights, the date palm isn’t there.

The time after that, they are. Appearances begin to outnumber absences, of this alien speaking the same nonsense salute as he leaves the pen. Analyzing the oddity, Shiro notes that it’s not just for him, that the palm’s maybe-blessing is actually a fixture before many fights besides his.

He watches them call their words after a gladiator marching off through the gate, jagged arm tossing the broth high.

Fists bangs on the doors to his skull, howling that it should be milk and it should be a spoonful and he should never have left Earth.

Doors locked tight, Shiro steps in the direction of the gutter, trying to subtly make his way around the alien.

But he’s noticed. Turning, they block his path, jabbering something he doesn’t understand, waving a hand back and forth.

_Prisoners die. Bodies turn over and bones become dust. The ring moves on. New bodies atop old bones. Grind down the dust._

Shiro doesn’t understand them explaining any of that. For his part, Shiro holds his ground in ignorance, trying not to freak out as a palm tree shaped like a person speaks to him in a low rasp, hunched like they fancy themself some wise old crone with wisdom to bequeath. Shiro leans away from the rank breath they blow in his face. Figuring _yes alright, so you’re a lunatic_ , he nods his non-understanding and leaves as fast as he can without it looking deliberate.

In the gutter he elbows his way to Ziani, where they’ll soon watch the match begin. With a mostly casual chuckle out the side of his mouth, Shiro asks who the hell he just spoke to.

Hir head swivels around, looking where Shiro’s jabbed a thumb over his shoulder. Then hir eyes crinkle, mouth swinging into a half-smile. “That’s Kalohenya.”

Shiro’s own smile slips.

“Our zealot,” Ziani turns back to the fight. “Oldest kept in our keep. Probably gone a bit sideways. But,” ze taps a deliberate finger on the dusty gutter ledge, “not as old as she looks. I’ve heard she’s very difficult to grab onto.”

And ze tells him what gnarled old Kalohenya said. What she dutifully says to every gladiator going off to a match.

The next time he fights, she’s there to say it again, broth glistening high in the air.

He begins to hear it in conversation around the pen. Now that he’s listening. A sequence of sounds, suddenly come alight with meaning, leaps out at him from the drone of gibberish. Shiro’s first words. Shiro’s first Galra.

Then he sort of forgets about it. A scrap of paper tacked to a corkboard in his head; something he hears on occasion, and the hearing of which makes him nod his head but roll his eyes. “Grind the dust,” tiptoes on the air. A kind of made-up mantra, to provide them all with an equally made-up sense of purpose. The kind of words spoken with a sardonic wink and a jab, because what could be more pointless than to grind down what’s already dust?

 

***

 

Now, Sunkatur has some decisions to make. Quads have been chosen.

She sits on her corner steps that used to lead up to pen 2 (the egress itself was sealed after guards finally caught on to the nice blind spot it made from surveillance). Koentak has the waters in this pen all kinds of stirred up, gladiators working to reorganize themselves along new lines.

If there are moves to be made, now is the time.

Sunkatur drums her fingers on her raised knee, claws clicking on scales one at a time. Quads chosen, quad leaders named. Kaltan, an idiot, Kalohenya, the zealot, Runakos, whose quad includes Aksuroth (and how is that fair?) Mozkatam and the Tsalchak. Thazio, who’s a schizotype and the three kandrian, who are monsters. Geldrat, their aristocrat, and K’Alyien with the long fingers. The philosopher Ardrothan, the newcomer Champion. Tandrai, the brain who used to run with Myzax, and a dozen others Sunkatur won’t be bothering to learn.

It’s going to be an interesting festival; she doesn’t know if they’ve ever had so many titled gladiators before.

Sunkatur doesn’t believe in cheating, but she also doesn’t believe in losing. And right now, Champion’s down.

But that’s awkward because he is one that she wants. Oh, very much, she wants to tangle with him. Just the thought of it fills her mouth and sets her tail and fingers to seeping. Watching him take Nikta apart just solidified it in her brain.

 _Nikta_ , she takes a tic to smile. Lovely Nikta, Nikta Crystal Cry with that pretty way he begged.

And the gifted little fiend that bit him open. With the big smile and the ugly anger; the clever one. She wants him, where the whole empire will see it.

But Sunkatur is nothing if not driven. She won’t sacrifice a smart play, just because it gets in the way of what she _wants._ Champion could mean trouble and she _wants_ trouble but it may be more than it’s worth and it may be wiser to get rid of him now. No one else will, Sunkatur has made it _abundantly clear_ this decision is hers. Though if Champion disappears, what are the odds his replacement will be up to par? If she doesn’t _have_ to do it, then…

Sunkatur’s tail drifts lazily. Decisions, decisions, now is the time.

 

***

 

For a tanu, it’s a time of soul-crushing tedium.

She’s cleaned him, she’s watered him. She’s fed him, she’s led him. She’s serviced his every indignity.

She looked up to see Champion wobbling of in the direction of the latrine. Some exhausted voice in her head snipped, _damnitall,_ with an empty sort of resignation. He half-mumbled something and nearly fell over, but she slid herself under his arm like it was a maneuver she’d practiced her whole life.

Having made their stumbling, snarling way over, a tanu grips the corner of the wall and, taking Champion’s elbow, more or less just flings him around the edge. The three walls at least make for easy maneuvering. No door to deal with. Spinning away and crossing her arms, a tanu leans back on the corner, to wait.

She’s not sure how he navigates his suit, given that just keeping upright gives him such a trial. But she isn’t about to stand there and hold his prick for him, and how hard can it be to aim for a hole in the floor?

(Actually, _very,_ if she had to guess based on the daily state of that floor. And walls.)

This is her life now.

She thinks it strange: there is _Champion_. Who saved her life, who killed monsters, who defied the emperor and lived, who has been on her thoughts since she met him.

And there is Champion. An incompetent, nearly-incontinent, sniveling husk of a person. Mostly subdue-able, infrequently violent. She has known him two days, but he is the lowest lifeform she can think of. She hates him more than she hates the thought of an open sky.

 

That evening finds her murmuring, “Hush, shhshh, you’re alright. Breathe, you’re alright.”

His hands hold her tight, frame wracked with tremors. She’d been asleep until the sound of his gasping woke the both of them.

“Breathe, we’re here with you. Right here.”

There’s a small hiccup. Wakeful and worried, he lays his flushed head against her shoulder, so meek and unassuming that a tanu can’t understand why _anyone_ wouldn’t just want to help him.

“I promise, we’re here.”

 

And that morning finds her in contemplation of just strangling him herself.

A tanu has sunk into her jadedness without looking back. If he palms her face to push her away, she knocks him in the mouth. If he pulls himself back, she takes his injured arm and squeezes. When he won’t be coaxed, she just moves him wherever she needs him.

Ziani warns her to check herself. Ziani bids her, “Smile, bright girl,” but a tanu can’t make it happen. Her empathy and personhood have both been rubbed to rawness, and she doesn’t have it in her to care about anything besides getting her rat’s job done.

(Some part of her can realize her roughness relies on his docility. She’d be better-mannered, only Champion doesn’t remind her that he’s dangerous.)

And isn’t that what’s important? He may squirm, but he eats, does he not? He broadcasts misery, but doesn’t he drink? He makes tears and mucus like crystal and slime,

But are his wounds not cleaned?

Her arrogance is beyond reproach, her competency is beyond correction. She can’t make herself do what Ziani wants.

Ziani sends her frown after frown, but a tanu can’t bear up under the mountain of lessons she hasn’t yet learned.

 

***

 

Today, Ziani’s pious condescension took form in the words, “Courage isn’t spite.” And a tanu was so fed up she’d volunteered to go trading for water, in place of Ziani, just so she could get away. 

But, lacking any credit of her own, she’s returning empty-handed. Still, it gave her time to cool, and she thinks she can at least try, now.

As she slips between the last of the crowd, a tanu’s padding steps freeze. Loekhan is nowhere to be found, Champion is halfway to his feet, and Ziani has become a sadist.

“Reizolm damn your _eyes_ , you sit the hell down.” And ze gives Champion such a shove, his head thunks the wall.

The first thing a tanu finds is her smirk. Irreproachable Ziani looms over Champion’s head, crest flared, holding his bandaged wrist in a death grip. Champion’s glare becomes a grimace, but ze still doesn’t let him go.

A tanu wasn’t even gone half a varga. What could have possibly happened in that time, that would make Champion act up and turn patient, perfect Ziani into a sadist?

A tanu thinks of chastising (ze is liable to hurt him). A tanu thinks of helping (peacekeeping is what she was born for). She thinks of lofty obligations to her family and her quad, and of how very tired Ziani must be.

Quietly spinning on her heel, she lets these thoughts moan inside her, all the way off to Loekhan. 

Leaving peerless, perfect Ziani the Sadist, to try practicing hir words alone.

 

***

 

She is off again, agitation winging her feet along. There’s nothing to trade for, there’s no Ziani to relieve her, but so be it, she _had_ to move. She couldn’t remain by him, with the sweat and the filth, and the acid stink of sick. With Ziani away since this morning and Loekhan dawdling somewhere, everything fell to her. Champion can handle being alone a few dobashes. She had to get up, she couldn’t be near him one tic longer.

“Hello, there.”

A tanu’s storm is swept to a standstill. Her path is blocked. A broad tail, thicker than her arm hangs in the air before her. Whirling, a tanu follows it back to the shape of its owner. The piebald. The gladiator painted white and black. Leaning on a wall a meter and a half away, long tail hovering outstretched in a casual display of strength.

“Come over here.”

A tanu’s pulse flies. Her mind starts to fling open doors and tear up hatches, screaming and upending for all that advice she knows Ziani gave her.

It’s whiteout. She can’t remember a thing.

“Come on.” She can’t think. Rats come when they’re called, and her blanking mind wants to fall back on old habits. “You’re new,” says the gladiator. “I just want to know about you.” 

The tail slides around her, like a stole to fall about her shoulders. Pressing into her flanks it guides her forward, gentle in a way that leaves no recourse besides obedience.

“But I don’t know you.” Her response sounds almost coy, a tanu wants to kick herself for talking.

“Me? You don’t know me?” The patchy scales shine, even in the dim light of the pen. Up close, a tanu sees they aren’t actually painted. No black scales painted white, or white scales painted black. The splashed hues are just natural pigment and she wonders why she would have thought otherwise. Nictating membranes flicker over the gladiator’s eyes, casting each one in a cloudy shade of blue for a fraction of a tic. No, a tanu does not know her. Instinctively, she strains her mind outward, but without bare skin, all she can sense are vagaries. _Strong. She. Vibrant._ And cruelly, utterly _fearless._

“I’m Sunkatur, little thing.” A tanu is short to begin with, but Sunkatur dwarfs her in a way that’s almost alarming. “I’m a king in here, I grind the dust.” Her splayed open hands look big for her arms, claws making her fingers stretch, “And I might like to be friends.”

 _Sunkatur._ A tanu doesn’t think she’ll have trouble remembering.

Sunkatur’s large hands fold. “You’re the new fixture here.” Her long nails click against each other, making a tanu curl her own blunt fingers. Head dropping down to a tanu’s height, Sunkatur leans in even closer, spilling intimacy into the little space enclosed between her pointed face and her curled tail as though from an overturned cup. Drenching a tanu in its warmth and its weight.

She whispers it like a secret, “See. Ziani Sunburn calls you Bright.” Rows of triangular teeth line her grin. “And Champion HeartEater called you Sweet.”

A tanu’s blood freezes. How could she possibly— Could she have been there?

Uninterrupted, Sunkatur continues, “So I figure you must be quite something. Best tell me, or I might call you Crystal Cry.” Her head tilts at her own joke. A tanu’s head spins, gears grinding.

Sunkatur holds her gaze, pale membranes nictating with a noise too soft to be heard in the pens. Eventually, she lets out a snort. “Oh, don’t look so dour. I adore children.” Merriment dances in the rapid blinking of both bright eyes. “—‘Adore children, but could never eat a whole one,’ isn’t that it? Yes?” She barks laughter, strong and clear, and a hand darts out to give a tanu a light shove.

Light perhaps, but still enough to force her half a step backwards. Crowded up against that tail, shuddering at its smooth slide down her back. Sunkatur’s scales rattle with cheer, the sound of dry seeds tumbling inside a gourd.

“I need to get going.” A tanu’s voice proves steadier than her footing did. She’s already shrugging Sunkatur off, gently elbowing through the smooth barrier of the tail. “There’s work I need to do. Ziani—”

She’s made it two and a half steps when a flash of white and black pops into her view. A tanu jumps back, crest spiking as the full two and a half meters of Sunkatur fill her vision, all long limbs and shining scales, litheness and sharp peg teeth for gripping onto things that wriggle. Her head comes forward again, weaving anguine on her long neck, “Yes, where _is_ that emmer of yours?”

To a tanu’s round eyes and clenched jaw, Sunkatur just huffs in exasperation. “Calm _down,_ I’m not hurting you.”

Embarrassment floods a tanu’s face, making her spiked crest fan out. Her jaw works but she can’t unwire it to say anything.

“I just want your help with something.” Sunkatur’s head bobs, hanging cocked to the side. “Oh, you ridiculous girl.” And her sharp-pointed face turns a full 180 degrees, suddenly staring at a tanu upside down. A tanu stiffens, Sunkatur just giggles, high and sharp. It seems like a constant state with her, as though a tanu has stumbled on the deific incarnation of all things mirthful. Her long throat expands to produce a strange cooing noise that braids its way into tinkling scales and vocal ebullience. All the sounds layer atop each other, making something musical and absurd. It’s an infectious noise. Between her coiled nerves, and the silliness of Sunkatur’s chattering, chortling upside-down leer, a tanu lets out a snort.

Sunkatur’s head rights itself, smile warming and stretching very wide. “There she is.” A large hand brushes a tanu’s cheek. “I have a decision to make, girl. I want you to help me make it.”

A tanu keeps trying to remember what Ziani told her to do, but her overturned, uprooted archives show only a mess of bits and pieces. _Don’t make eye contact,_ resting half on top of _But don’t look away either._

She isn’t sure how exactly one does that. She chooses the short shape of one of Sunkatur’s horns, for something to focus on, avoiding eyes entirely. “What do you want?”

“See,” Sunkatur says, “I’m an honest sort. ‘Honorable,’ if you will. It’s a terrible curse, but I just have such a weakness for you all.”

Does she have to be this _close?_ It finally occurs to a tanu to look around. Hope swells tentative in her chest, but deflates just as fast because she doesn’t recognize a single face. Ziani is off with a regular, not even in the pens. Loekhan is probably back with Champion by now, what was she _thinking_ , wandering off like this?

She remembers another time when she strayed. Small and screaming and she hadn’t meant to get so lost.

“Have you noticed,” Sunkatur’s hiss draws her attention back, “What an easy time you’ve had in here? These last days? With your emmer and with Loekhan?” Her eyes take on a strange light, “And that _angry,_ angry brute of yours?”

Yes. Yes, a tanu had noticed. Sunkatur smiles on, “How many times has anyone troubled you? You didn’t think that just _happened_.” No, but she’d dared hope. “No, little StutterStare.”

Sunkatur’s arms are long enough to link around a tanu’s shoulders without her actually bringing her body any closer. Maybe that’s why a tanu isn’t quick enough to back away. Hands snake out like they aren’t connected to Sunkatur at all, and before a tanu knows it, she’s being encircled. Behind her, the tail hovers like it too, has a mind of its own.

“We _like_ that one, don’t we, girl?” One long finger taps a tanu’s cheek again, sharp claw scrapping but too light to draw blood. “Wouldn’t want anything to happen to him in here, while he’s so… indisposed. And,” her arms land, curled around a tanu’s shoulders. “Wouldn’t want anything to happen to you either. Pretty girl like you.” A hefty collar, a necklace of blinding white and iridescent black, to keep her in place. A tanu holds in a shiver, feeling trapped and secured and excited.

They are pretending at friendliness. She knows what this is. Sunkatur’s arms around her, their heads turned in. They are miming familiarity, which a tanu has done before with someone else. But back then, she _wanted_ to be close to Champion, and now she detests him. She didn’t want to be close to Sunkatur, but now

Bright scales shimmer hypnotic, like nothing a tanu has ever seen. Sunkatur purrs happily, leaning in until her long snout is right next to a tanu’s ear. “So gift me something, BrightGirl SweetHeart. I’ll be ever so glad if you do.” Hot breath rolls down the back of her neck, a tanu _must_ not shudder. “It doesn’t have to be much.”

“Hey,”

The air cracks open. A tanu leaps, whirling around like she’s been caught wrongdoing as Sunkatur’s arms fall from her neck.

But it’s not Ziani, standing there. It’s not Loekhan.

“Well,” Sunkatur straightens back up to her full towering height. “ _Look_ who’s not dead yet after all.” She steps forward, tail trailing through the air like it’s reluctant to leave a tanu’s shoulder. Alone, she shivers. “It does me such good to see you up and about.”

She sounds so strangely sincere. A tanu wasn’t prepared for sincerity, and she’s been wrongfooted this entire time, dealing with so much overbearing earnestness.

Champion’s arms are crossed and his eyes are cold. When a tanu left him, his face was shiny and pale. Save for the red blooming high on his cheeks, that hasn’t much changed. A tanu can’t even figure out how he’s standing there.

“Step away,” he growls. Combative right out the gate.

Sunkatur tilts her head. “I’m talking with my friend. What’s wrong? We were talking about you, was your tail tingling?” Her eyes sparkle, “Oh, pardon. No, I guess it wasn’t.”

Champion shifts a foot forward. “Revisit this later.”

“Why?” Sunkatur’s tail flicks. For the first time, a tanu sees its smoothness snap to attention, bristling at once into a jagged thicket of barbs. Its owner takes a step, “The girl isn’t allowed to have her own conversations? We were just about—”

A tanu darts forward and seals her hand around Sunkatur’s wrist.

_the sun is warm, the air is wet, his shirt plastered to his back as he tears between trees, green blurring on his either side, heart pounding and lungs burning but he knows he can go faster than this. a shrine flashes across his periphery telling him he’s one mile out from his grandfather’s home but he knows he can run faster than this over a_

_field of green, nothing but green grass, green steppe and his legs clench his saddle as their long stride just eats up the ground, mile after mile faster and farther than he could ever hope and his heart thumps like it wants out like he’ll burst under the blistering sun_

_tea in a tin cup with rich yak butter, tea from green leaves, in a delicate handleless cup that’s casually older than he is, and tea in a chipped mug with the bag at the bottom and the string trailing because desperate times call for desperate measures and his aunt can roll in her grave all she likes but he just wrote three essays tonight and his steaming mug with its teabag is all that kept him upright_

_the sun is so very warm. dewy light of apricity melting through a winter that went on so fucking long. sunshine on a field of snow that makes him squint his eyes shut like being enveloped in light as he runs down a hill through waist-deep powder like floating like flying_

It’s over in a tenth of a tic.

Sunkatur stands with every barb bristled, every sinew pulled taut. “You—” She turns to a tanu, eyes blown wider and darker than they were a dobash ago. “Oh that _was_ something.” Her breathing has picked up ever so slightly, the rise and fall of her chest a touch more pronounced. “That… but that wasn’t yours.”

No. A tanu has never seen snow. Or trees. Or clouds. Or horses, grass, grandfathers, she’s never tasted tea.

Dryness sticks her mouth shut, she raises a wordless arm to Champion. That jumbled, fevered mess of beautiful shadows so far from here? That was the product of this morning, when she’d squeezed the hinge of his jaw, to get him to take water. He’d been shivering, he’d been cold. And his delirious, miserable mind had screamed its longing for warmth so loudly that snippets leaked through for her to pick up. At the time, she’d barely noticed.

“You wanted a reason,” she offers, feeling giddy and lively, strange confidence animating every limb, infused with remembered euphoria. She looks at Champion with no small amount of wonder. Beside her, Sunkatur draws a long breath through her nose.

Champion stares back, soberly unmoved. “Right. Now, let’s move on.” He looks around Sunkatur to a tanu, “Head on back, alright? Wait for me, there.”

“Hold on, now,” Sunkatur starts, “Hold on.” She shivers theatrically, smile growing. “Is there more of—”

“Walk away from this conversation.” Champion turns to a tanu again, jerking his head back in the direction of their corner. This time, a tanu scrambles forward.

Sunkatur’s hand drops onto her shoulder (a tanu’s stomach drops through the floor). “No call to be rude.”

“None at all,” Champion agrees. “But we’re heading back. Step off right now.”

“If I don’t?”

Champion does nothing more than unfold his arms. He doesn’t move forward or backward, just holds her gaze and settles his stance. How the source of a warmth that is _still_ spinning a tanu’s head, can turn his countenance so icey seems a mystery best left for another time. Champion doesn’t bother with warnings. Sunkatur can step away with dignity or she can step away without.

It’s the willingness to follow through that makes the difference. So a tanu thinks anyway. Sunkatur knows full well the state he’s in. She can’t not. Yet Champion’s knock knees aren’t knocking (and a tanu still wants to know why that is), and surely, that can’t help but introduce some doubt. In shoulders broad enough to stack a mountain on, there is not the slightest tremble.

It loosens a tanu’s chest just a little. He’s more trouble than this is worth. On the offchance that he substantiates his bluff, Sunkatur’s hand slides off a tanu’s neck.

“Alright, Champion ShowFangs, if I make you so nervous.” Her eyes are still dark. The hand that just lifted displays a strange shine, welled up along the fingertips. She pulls her breath in deep, seeming to luxuriate as she stretches her arms behind her. “Run along.”

She waves her tail towards Champion, though his eyes never leave her face. “I’ll see you again soon.”

And her hand lightly brushes a tanu’s crest. Intrusive in a way that sends heat jolting down her spine. “And I hope I’ll see you.” Her fingers comb through feathers, tapping a tanu’s skull. “Bring this again.”

The scales on Sunkatur’s face glitter. Black of tree limb on white of snow, now that a tanu’s been taught what snow is. And though a tanu will never see trees, she thinks they’re handsome colors on a handsome face. Sunkatur’s skin on hers wasn’t as informative, drowned under heat and sunshine, but there is a strange magnetism to her.

Or maybe a tanu’s just a touch-happy idiot, coming down from a high. She’s never tried to open a memory gift before (she’s never even had one to open). Much less when sharing with another person. _Much_ less when that gift came from a mind beset by illness.

“You’re a very beautiful girl,” as Sunkatur is already slinking away, and for less than a tic, a tanu has the urge to follow.

But she turns her head to Champion, and the urge carries right over. She’s by his side in two long strides ( _eat up the ground, mile after mile_ ), ready to offer her shoulder, should he need it.

“What did you do?” he asks. Not looking at her, the stiff line of his back remains unbent.

“Something you showed me.” As the visions fade further, she becomes uncomfortably aware of the slowness of his steps. It’s at odds with the sudden anxiousness that tells her own feet to speed up. To take her further away from that whole nerve-wracking situation. “I just shared it.”

“Have—” A glance upward, and she sees his eyes have shut. He breathes through his nose, and his back tilts forward just a hair. A swallow, and his eyes stutter open again. “Have I shown you other things?”

“No. Not really.” Little things, like _pneumonia_ , which she’s already largely forgotten. Little things that pass like dreams.

She already can’t remember what gets added to tea. She’s lost what it feels like to be surrounded by sunlight. “It was just because you’re sick. It maybe made your brain…” she flaps her hand, “fire strangely. The wrong… thought paths. Instead of thinking it, it was like you said it, and that meant—”

Champion staggers forward to collapse against a wall. Once again, surprise catches a tanu on the chin, she hadn’t noticed they’d made it back. Her chest is beginning to ache from all the times her pulse has jumped, today. Too many surprises. She sees Loekhan is nowhere to be found, why doesn’t _that_ surprise her? She has to step forward and grab Champion’s arm, pinning his weight to the wall before he drops.

Already, she’s slipping back into who she was before this happened. Annoyance is warming. It doesn’t compare to the blissful surge of bright light in chemical synapse (that then faded so fast, giddiness turning to emptiness), but aggravation is better than to be cold.

By the time she eases him down to the ground, Champion is panting. A ragged sound that has him clutching his chest, the heel of his palm pressed to his sternum, while the other braces his ribs. A tanu’s skin prickles with rising impatience, she _knew_ this was coming. He probably thinks he’s entitled to it after he did such a good job of just _standing._ The smell coming from his arm has her gorge rising, and for one instant she wants to drop her head into her hands, wondering when he’ll just be well again.

“I was looking for you,” he croaks, with his eyes lowered.

Quietly, she grips her elbows. “You found me.”

It would be welcome, to sink into her choler. But she can’t let the dobash pass without, “Thank you.” Small, stilted, just like her. She hadn’t meant to run into Sunkatur. She wishes she hadn’t wandered.

“Just… Don’t go near her.” He swallows hard, smoothing some of the rasp out of his voice. “Okay? People like her… You stay away.” What color had risen in his face is long gone, now. His skin carries a pearly sheen. But deceptively fast, his eyes fly open, and his hand fists in the loose edge of her tunic,

“We clear?”

A tanu looks down. He isn’t actually touching her, or even tugging her forward. His breath is rank, his eyes are regaining their sickliness. A tanu nods rapidly. Of course she won’t, she’ll be more careful, she didn’t mean to do this.

But he’s a wall for breaking fists against. Champion lets go of her tunic, only to reach up and tap his own ear. He wants to hear it.

A tanu thinks of infectious laughter. Dark eyes. Handsome colors. Strong arms draped around her neck. Careless mocking, _knowing_ things she shouldn’t, pushing in with such entitlement that it never even _occurred_ to a tanu to so much as say, ‘Let go.’

“No. I won’t go anywhere near her.”

And Champion’s stone wall sinks into the grass ( _green, nothing but_ —she can’t remember). “Good.” His hand drops to his side, head tilting down in exhaustion. “Good. Stay clear of people. Can’t trust in here… You teach her to treat you that way. D-… Can’t, not in here. People… people like her? Not in here…”

And just like that, he’s a buffoon again, and a tanu feels very alone. She can at least count this ordeal as him having walked. Now, she has nothing to do but listen to him ramble, and wait to give him water.

And to think.

It’s twice now, that she got lost and he was there. Where once, gratitude had made her idolize him, now it just leaves her humiliated. Cold, like a layer of her skin has been stripped down.

It will not happen to her again. Not ever.

She lets Champion grip tightly to her arm, while he mumbles about some danger or another, perseverant over terrors that only he has noticed. The ache underneath his hand is a point of warmth.

A tanu sits and shivers. She hopes Ziani will come back soon.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *brushes off hands* The good news is, that's the last oc w/ a storyline! (phew)  
> Tell me if you have any thoughts.  
> Though, if those thoughts are 'Eugh, generic badguy," then buddy, that is a-okay, you go ahead,  
>  ~~but just you wait, Henry Higgins~~  
>  Also FOR ONCE I can say: next update in a week (lmao, how crazy!)  
> (also lmao, can ya guess who read animorphs as a kid, and really enjoyed book 26??)


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These chapter lengths are getting problematic. Gonna have to try posting a shorter next chapter, just to remind myself it's still possible.  
> Also, cry hooray for a break from angry!sickfic!
> 
> WARNING: Tense-jumping. I would have done the whole 'put everything in italics, to differentiate between now and then' thing, but I feel like reading that much italics would be profoundly headache-inducing

 

"Your quadmates have seen to your rehabilitation?"

Shiro focuses on calm breathing. "Yes, Sir."

"Understand that your cohesiveness is a priority."

Yes, Shiro understands that.

The shorter officer points to his arm. "That. Are you recovered?"

The arm aches. He can't breathe without pain. And his leg is slowly locking up from standing still. "Supplies are all out," is how he answers.

With his mouth covered, they have him repeat himself, louder for the translators to catch it. The answer makes them frown. The shorter officer presses something on his dataslate and Shiro hears a beep by his ear, before either of them steps any closer. His band's hummed reminder is about as subtle as a brick through a window. In an assessment room full of handlers and sentries, and Shiro unable to even get a full breath, it seems like overkill.

Under watchful eyes, his cuffs are slipped off. Shiro bites the inside of his lip, holding out his forearm, palm up, for them to untie the dressing. Where it once glowed purple, it has yellowed. The wounds had drained and drained (and drained), serous and purulent fluids that saturated the wrap, drying it into a stiff brown crust. The taller officer carefully holds his arm for him, while the shorter goes to work on the individual puncture wounds. Over the last few days, each contaminated toothmark burrowed for itself a hot, painful little abscess pocket. Shiro has vague memories of a tanu cleaning out his arm, discarding fingerfuls of pus, thick as toothpaste and holding him still while he felt like he was burning alive.

Now, the shorter officer divests each half-healed hole of its meticulously administered packing, little wicks of gauze pulled out, balled up, and clenched away in the galra's fist.

Shiro bites his tongue.

With every additional piece pulled off of and out of his skin, the foul smell of rot fills the air. It sifts right through the cover on his face to settle thick on the back of his tongue. Behind him, a throat clears; one of the handlers gags. He knows galra noses are sensitive.

"Drainage is serosanguinous. Residual swelling." Fingers prod the gray skin between pockets of redness, Shiro modulates his hiss but doesn't silence it. Pigs get fed. Hogs get slaughtered.

"Marked dehiscence."

 _Yeah, no shit._ He doesn't smother his flinch, when fingers dig deep. Doesn't pretend he isn't damaged. Hopes, if only just the slightest-

"Not significant."

Shiro stops whining.

The taller officer's eyes flit up, but he doesn't comment. That one hasn't said a single thing yet. Shiro's arm aches.

"Infection adequately controlled. No further treatments."

Shiro doesn't even blink.

"Oh, also he's cleared for preliminary meetings."

Shiro blinks repeatedly.

He thought he wasn't tame enough for appointment. Behind his mask, the shorter officer chuckles, and Shiro goes tense. Red and black, it covers the entire lower half of his face, almost a sleeker mirror to Champion's muzzle, though he doubts the officer has ever worried about lazy handlers who sometimes forget and sometimes "forget" to unlock it when they're done with him.

The blank span of dark material lends his features something sinister, and Shiro has to wonder does _he_ look that scary with his muzzle on? Leaning in a little, the chatty officer quips, "The ring's been needing someone like you. Expect to be popular."

No verbal acknowledgement indicated, Shiro raises his eyes to show yes, he's heard the officer's non-question (however little sense it makes). But in the breath of quiet, while the dataslate processes spoken words into record, Shiro seizes his chance, "May I keep the dressing, Sir?" A calculated risk to talk uninvited, but he doesn't want them to take it away. Granted, what he would rather bring up is that he still cannot breathe well and please, he needs some kind of provision for that. But Shiro chooses his battles, when the battles let him.

"Why?"

A warm flush steals up to the bottoms of Shiro's ears as he grits out, "Cleanliness."

Sure enough, there's sniggering. Still holding the wrap, the short officer waves it under Champion's nose. "'Cleanliness?'" The smell would probably have made his eyes water, but apparently Shiro's finally found a benefit to having his mouth and nose covered.

"Can be used inside out, Sir. Keeps dirt out."

During his relative youth, Shiro developed the self-preserving habit of nicknaming jackasses. At least the ones he reported to. Dressing downs were much easier to endure when he could mentally acknowledge, _Sure thing, Buffalo Head, that was my fault, you're absolutely right. Yes Sir, Commander Douche-Canoe, Sir, I will take your words to heart._

For the life of him, he can't remember what he named the short one. _Deferentially unobjectionable and irreproachably polite_ is much easier to maintain when he names them, what did he wind up calling the short one? None of his guesses seem very clever. Was it Shitstain? Was it Thundercunt? Was it _pleaseletmehavethewrapjustletmehavethefuckingwrap_

The officer stares for a tic. But then he tosses it to the floor. Apparently, it's beneath his notice, too small an issue to even be petty over. Meanwhile, Shiro's heart pounds. It's a long wrap, there's plenty of clean space left. Even with the gel all leached out, Shiro can probably stretch use from it for more than enough time until his skin can finally be allowed to close up. He forces his eyes not to flit downward. If he thanks them for nothing, they might decide it's worth taking after all.

As an afterthought, the officer flings his handful of packing in Shiro's face. "You can have these too." The damp gauze scraps flutter down, some landing in Shiro's hair and on his shoulders. One sticks to the grate on the muzzle, almost right over his nose, and that is apparently very amusing. With the officer already chuckling on his own, Shiro doesn't think he's required to offer a "Thank you, Sir."

"Gladiator has no record of service in any prior games, we may proceed." Shiro's hands are recuffed behind him. The stiff fabric of his tunic drags against the uncovered holes in his arm. A painfully long needle is inserted into his back, straight through muscle, near his kidney. Another goes into a jugular vein. His blood starts flowing, and the the taller officer ( _Sarah Plain and Tall,_ he knows that one) steps around in front of him, to stand beside his partner. Shiro still can't remember, but— _Shitstain it is then_ —he resumes talking, voice bored and businesslike, shaping words he's probably spoken hundreds of times.

"Will you conduct yourself appropriately during this Koentak?"

"Yes, Sir."

"Do you plan to partake in any activities outside the normal conduct and purview of a gladiator of your station?"

"No, Sir."

"How will you fight?"

"To the utmost of my capacity."

"Will you fight to the utmost of your capacity during every match, as you are instructed?"

"Yes, Sir."

"Do you harbor any resentments towards your three quadmates?"

"No, Sir."

"Will you protect your three quadmates to the best of your ability during matches, without regard to the identity of your assigned opponents?"

"Yes, Sir."

"Do you currently or will you extend any preferential treatment or interaction to any of your quadmates?"

"No, Sir."

"Do you have intention or plan to harm yourself, or harm others outside of the ring?"

"No, Sir."

"Do you have intention or plan to kill yourself at any time during this festival?"

"No, Sir."

"Could any of your activities or planned activities be construed as an attempt to interrupt, delay, alter, or in any other way, undermine the integrity of this festival's proceedings?"

Shiro hadn't asked Ziani what would happen if he answered wrong to any of these questions. "No, Sir."

"Concluding staff assessment for Gladiator 2-571-59-4795, formerly Prisoner 117-9875 for this, Koentak 9837. Assessment was carried out by myself, Staff Inspector Solket, with the oversight of the attending physician. Gladiator verbally demonstrates no subversive or antisocial ideation, with vocal and blood marker analysis pending."

With that, he snaps shut his dataslate. Plain and Tall unhooks the needles and tubing. The cartridge holding Shiro's blood sampling is replaced with an empty one for the next gladiator. Both officers turn away.

Trying not to look eager, Shiro begins to stoop for the wrap. His collar objects the unsanctioned movement, red flares behind his eyes. Pain cuts his breath short, and in the half-second he goes rigid, a tug at his leadline yanks him backwards. _Wait, but-_ He's pulled protesting from the room with nothing but that scrap of gauze still stuck to his face.

Not to punish him—he gave them no care to punish him—but because it simply slipped their minds that he'd been promised.

It would be a deeply stupid thing to cry over.

 

***

 

"Why do you just call her 'girl'?"

"Why wouldn't I? Go back to sleep."

"But wh- what, why would I sleep?"

"..."

"D'you-... am I rude to ask her name?"

 _Yes,_ Ziani wanted to snap. Yes, he was. Rude for asking, but ruder for having the nerve to wake from his fugue _just_ as Ziani had considered bedding down hirself. The day had been long. And with assessments only a few days away (and a tanu's first bout only a day after that), Ziani's fears had finally begun to scrape hir skull without relenting. And always looming over hir head was Champion's unremitting fever. If _Champion_ had spent the entire day watching himself fidget and moan, if _he'd_ been the one keeping his fool self quiet, watching his skin grow warmer and ruddier and wondering if he was going to die—

He wouldn't be asking why ze wanted him back asleep.

But ask he did, so Ziani said that the girl was too young. _What_ , ze put to him, would be the point of naming her now, just to find something new once she sang?

Ze had been hoping to head him off. But instead of settling back down, Champion chose wakefulness. "Fawn spots?" he tried.

"What?"

"Seijin-no-hi?"

_What?_

And Ziani found hirself pruning hir own crop of questions as ze and Champion each tried to figure what the other was talking about. Like as not it was foolishness. Champion's thoughts rolled in an unhealthy din of illness and delirium; Ziani may have been arguing with a sleeptalker for all ze knew. That last word came out as a chuckle, but who was being laughed at, Ziani or himself?

In no time at all, the guessing games became more than ze could stand. Below his hairline, Champion's skin was damp and slippery. He gave a sharp twitch when Ziani just placed hir whole hand against his neck, forestalling any more confusion. " _What?_ "

Reaching up, his arm shook, Ziani had to duck hir cheek into his palm. Contact reinforced two ways, and then,

"Khatam al koran?" _Fawn spots baby down quinceanera_ "Coming of age?" _bat mitzvah 21 shots 21 years a hard slap to the back hey welcome to adulting little brother_ and Ziani saw the celebrations.

Yanking back hir hand, ze and Champion both jolted like receiving a shock. Then Champion's eyes rolled and he lowered his head.

"Yes," ze caught his arm as it dropped like a stone. "Yes, something like that."

But he was quiet.

Ziani knew it was... taxing for him to meet hir halfway, during the times they had to brute-force an understanding. Most days, he didn't complain. Today, it did nicely to knock him out. But instead of seizing hir chance to lay down for a rest, Ziani's mind allowed itself to be drawn down well-worn paths better left alone.

There were so many things hir sister had been denied. Ze could never count how many. It was pointless for Ziani to cling to any of them, least of all old traditions of majority. The galra didn't care whether a tanu had sung yet. They certainly hadn't cared when they tossed her in here. And if she lived long enough to impress (and Ziani couldn't entertain the notion that she might not), they'd see to her appellation, whether she'd sung by then or not.

They named Ziani because hir mother was dead and hir contract was theirs. They named Champion, overtop the name his mother gave him. And they would eventually name a tanu because there were likely no nautori mothers left for her anyway.

Once this would have made Ziani violently angry. But the flavors of outrage had long grown stale. Back when Loekhan had been a stranger and a tanu had still been a rat and Champion hadn't yet existed, Ziani had wasted entire nights on it. Entire nights of bloodied fists on bloodied walls, fuming at hir own impotence. Ze raged for hir sister, to keep from raging for hirself, because ze had not the mettle to give credence to hir own sufferings (that much had not changed with time). Ze wrapped hirself up in hir fruitless grandiloquence of denial because to denounce this existence as _wrong_ at least made hir feel less complicit in its wrongdoings. Quiet as the dead, ze would hiss and ze'd spit.

Until pragmatism forced hir back under control because of course, ze could not hope to fight the next day with broken hands and no sleep.

There was nothing the galra didn't hold. Even just to hate them was a luxury they could tax.

And Ziani still needed that sleep, didn't ze? Tonorrow was another day in the doldrums of wet-nursing and keeping guard. With Champion out, ze banished hir thoughts and stretched hir crossed legs out straight, determined to at least manage a doze in the time left before rounds.

 

***

 

Champion passed the time making a despondent nuisance of himself, waking up frightened, waking up lost. Occasionally he took a swing at them, which was always more frightening than it seemed it ought to be, but the muscle layering his arm wasn't for show, and the strength didn't disappear just because his fever hadn't broken. His efforts were uncoordinated and half-hearted, but it didn't change that he _tried_.

Though, when that swing narrowly missed hir sister's head, Champion didn't even have time to blink before Ziani's fist cracked across his cheek to lay him out flat. Enough was enough. Hauling him up by his collar, ze snarled in his face that ze'd beat him bloody if he so much as _thought_ of trying that again.

Rolling eyes found their way to hirs, very tired and very confused. "I'm sorry." Blood dripped from his nose to collect on his lip.

Ziani had to shut hir own eyes on how very close ze felt to collapse. "Alright." Hir hands moved to his shoulders, smoothing his tunic back into place as ze tried and failed to hush the trembling in hir fingers. "Alright."

Leaning back out of his space, ze pulled him to sit up again. Beside them, a tanu shriveled, lingering like another unwanted apology. Until she could linger no longer, retreating across the hall to Loekhan. Ziani ran unsteady hands over hir crest, tugging hard at the feathers. This all needed to _stop._ Warning off other gladiators, fending off hir own quadmate, keeping hir sister in line—

"I am sorry," he called quietly, like he thought ze was walking away from him.

"It's fine."

"I shouldn't—"

"Alright, it's _fine._ "

"Should never've gone."

Ziani's head whipped back around. Champion had turned away, he wasn't talking to hir.

Ziani could smell the salt in the air. Ze wanted to drop hir head into hir hands. Just what was ze supposed to _do?_ Weren't they valuable fighters? Wasn't ze, wasn't Champion? But they just tossed him in here and he was sick, didn't they _care?_ Ziani had been at the ring for what felt like an eternity, but ze could never resolve the senselessness of it. Why didn't they care? If their stock should keel over and die, wasn't that something they'd want to prevent?

"'S no good, now," Champion spoke intently to an empty patch of wall. Stringy hair fell around his eyes, his face was very pale. "Not now, it _won't—_ "

Ziani plugged his mouth with hir day flask, forcing water down his throat because nobody seemed to care at all.

 

***

 

"You've been seeing to the rehabilitation and therapy of your quadmate."

"Yes, Ma'am."

"But we have not made you this quad's leader. Do you harbor any resentments regarding your position?"

"None, Ma'am."

"You have an established record of serving in previous festivals and feast days. Your performance has been fair, earning crowd favor at a ratio of 5:2, with commendation in three classes. Several repeats but no regulars. Do you contest this information?"

It makes no mention of hir wins, Ziani _absolutely_ contests it. "No, Ma'am."

"We may proceed." The staff inspector stands with her dataslate at the ready. By her side, the attending physician steps forward. Two needles are secured in Ziani's skin, one alongside hir crest and one deadcenter at hir throat.  

"Will you conduct yourself appropriately during this Koentak?"

"Yes, Ma'am."

"Do you plan to partake in any activities outside the normal conduct and purview of a gladiator of your station?"

"No, Ma'am."

"How will you fight?"

"To the utmost of my capacity."

"Will you fight to utmost of your capacity during every match, as you are instructed?"

"Yes, Ma'am."

"Do you harbor any resentments towards your three quadmates?"

"No, Ma'am."

"Will you protect your three quadmates to the best of your ability during matches, without regard to the identity of your assigned opponents?"

"Yes, Ma'am."

"Do you currently or will you extend any preferential treatment or interaction to any of your quadmates?"

It can't be a lie. "No. Ma'am."

 

***

 

A _thump,_ and Ziani's eyes slid open. Hir arm fumbled about, pawing at where hir tunic was wrapped over hir face, keeping the light out. Pulling it down, ze was greeted with the sight of Loekhan's foot. Ziani followed his leg up and up, to where he and Champion stood high above hir head. Loekhan had a trunk wrapped around Champion's shoulders, and Ziani finally noticed that the patch of floor beside hir was indeed bare.

"Wha'izzit?" came out more a grunt than any kind of word.

"He woke up confused." Loekhan's voice was a low rumble like the ground shuddering. "He was trying to bother people, looking for someone."

Ziani beat an exhausted fist against the floor, levering hir shoulders up. Reizolm _alive,_ but ze was tired. "Who was he looking for?"

Loekhan's other trunk landed on Champion's shoulder, carefully forcing him down to his knees, then lying flat. Champion went without complaint, deceptively docile for all the trouble he'd been causing.

"'Keethe'?" Loekhan's trunk swayed back and forth. "No one I know."

Ziani huffed. He probably woke and went looking for someone he dreamt.

Flopping down flat, ze raised a hand to rub hir eyes, feeling a headache come on.

Considering his duty done, Loekhan dropped himself to the floor. Ziani's sister scooted over to lie beside hir, and Ziani drew Champion up between them. This time, ze made a point to toss an arm over his side, palm coming to rest over his stomach.

"Keith?" His voice was guileless and inappropriately loud. The noise made Ziani flinch, ze considered banging hir head against the floor. The whole room could probably hear him. "Hey," Champion struggled up onto an elbow, head swiveling, "Hey. _Keith,_ where are—" and Ziani clapped hir hand over his mouth, shutting him up and dragging him back down.

"Just go to sleep."

"Mrrph." Ze saw him think about struggling.

"No." Ze made hir arm as iron. He would not escape, he would not be picking himself up, he would not be making trouble.

A small effort to shake hir off, before the driven light in his eye dimmed a few lums. "... Mmkay." And he lowered his head.

Ziani waited a beat longer before removing hir hand from his mouth. Ze slid it back down to his side, holding him in place like the wayward kit he was so determined to imitate.

Ziani smelled salt. Either no time had passed, or ze had dozed and woken again. Cracking one eye open, ze mentally counted to ten, nosing hir way out from under hir tunic.

Champion was shaking, ze could feel his stomach jump beneath hir hand.

 _Oh,_ ze thought sadly, understanding it now. Ze found disillusionment hurt worse than irritation. Fresh salt and fresher gloom flavored the air, as Ziani fisted hir sleepy hand in his tunic and pondered how the mighty fall.

"I really, I just—"

"Shush," a tanu whispered, before Ziani could snap.

"I just need to find him—"

"Tomorrow." Her hand rubbed up and down his arm. "Just go to sleep. Find him tomorrow."

"Please." His shoulders quaked up around his ears, unselfconscious in a way only ever seen in the very young and the very ill. It made Ziani's eyes sting.

"Tomorrow," ze gritted out. And in the vulnerable dead of night, ze couldn't think of a single good reason they couldn't promise him this. No good reason why he couldn't have the simple thing he asked for.

A cold hand wrapped around hirs. Narrow fingers, stronger and surer than Ziani remembered them, and ze wondered, _when did that happen?,_ and _where was I?_  A tanu promised, "Tomorrow," with steadiness enough for all three of them. A rusted sort of pride lit itself in Ziani's stomach, worsening the burn at hir eyes. _Ymma protect her, aja preserve her,_ ze bade hir sister's stars. _Reizolm Untiring, keep her strong._

Champion's shaking finally slowed. "Tomorrow," he agreed. "I... I can't find him now." As his shoulders dropped, a weariness of both world and limb tugged Ziani downward. No more words please, ze wanted to sleep.

"Please, don't go."

Just to sleep.

"I won't."

They whispered with their heads together, but Ziani lost track. Loekhan's tail swept over their flanks, so the trailing ends draped down hir back. It did not cut the cold. And the simple state of being blanketed could not itself confer security, so Ziani didn't feel comforted.

But ze might have once. When ze was much younger. And perhaps that made it a kindness. Something inside Ziani was quieted by having hirself at one side and Loekhan at the other, with Champion and a tanu between them. It made the most sense, for the situation at hand. Ziani was fit and strong, and Loekhan would remain half-awake.

And that, ze thought, made for far better comfort.

Ziani tucked hirself down, cold face buried against the back of Champion's neck. Pulling hir tunic back up to block the light, ze set hir fingers more securely around hir sister's. A heavy sigh earned hir a lungful of staleness, but hir eyes were shut, mind already beginning to smooth out.

Across from hir, ze thought ze heard a tanu whisper, "I still hate you."

 _Who?_ ze wondered. _Me?_

As ze sank, ze felt Champion's unsteady hand find theirs, fingers curling around Ziani's wrist.

 

***

 

Champion woke to wander a few times more. Disoriented, but not quite sleepwalking. And each time, Loekhan brought him back with a trunk around his waist.

But in the morning, when Ziani clicked into awareness before rounds, Champion was already sitting upright, eyes crystal-clear.

Just in time for assessments to begin. If he hadn't been ready, Ziani didn't know what would have happened. Hir sigh of relief was genuine.

But equally genuine, and with unspeakable seriousness, ze leveled bloodshot, twitching eyes on him, saying, "You are not to take ill, _ever_ again."

 

***

 

"We've built a very strong yoke with the three of you. Do you understand?"

"Yes, Ma'am." Loekhan doesn't remind her that they've also been given the scrawniest unblooded of any quad in the pens.

"Do you anticipate resentment from other kept gladiators?"

"No, Ma'am." He absolutely does, and he'd be an idiot not to.

"You have seen to the rehabilitation and therapy of your quadmate."

"Yes, Ma'am."

"You do not lead this quad, do you harbor any resentments regarding your position?"

"None, Ma'am."

"You have an established record of serving in previous festivals and feast days. Your performance has been fair, earning crowd favor at a ratio of 9:2, with commendation in three classes. Small number of longstanding regulars, very few first time purveyors. Do you contest this information?"

It's more than he bothers to keep track of. "No, Ma'am," he does not.

"We may proceed." Loekhan stands between all seven of his handlers, with both trunks and all four of his feet chained down to the floor. His collar gives an eager hum in his ear. It's flattering, in all honesty. Somewhere deep down, galra can still know when they're small.

Flanked by their sentries, the two officers begin.

Needles are inserted at the underside of Loekhan's jaw, and at the inner corner of his eye socket. The pain is incredible. The shorter one begins to read,

"Will you conduct yourself appropriately during this Koentak?

 

***

 

Late at night, Champion blinks his eyes open. Straining his neck, nosing his way out of the tunic wrapped around his head, he completes his near-nightly ritual of waking up again after Ziani is asleep. Or at least it used to be after Ziani's asleep. Now it's after Ziani, a tanu, and Loekhan are asleep.

He doesn't wander. He knows where he is.

The pen drones, indifferent.

By his side sleeps his youngest quadmate. Champion knows very little about this girl whose life he'd preserved and rearranged, in a course of split-second decisions with consequences he'd never considered. She knows him well enough that he's made her hate him, but for his part, it's like they met yesterday. Ever since his fever broke, his memory looks like a fish net. Strings and snippets of ongoing pain and embarrassed vulnerability.

He remembers the trembling of Ziani's hands. The permanent line between a tanu's eyes. From the clear moments when it had dawned on him—when it beat him round the head—the profundity of the service he'd asked of these people, just by needing as he had.

There was a time in his life when just the thought of such dependence would have made him burst into tears of mortification. But of all this place's perversities, the biggest joke is dignity. That didn't mean it wasn't mortifying. But the feeling was a whisper instead of wail.

It learned to cry silently, just like a tanu is learning.

Looking down at her, he whispers, or maybe just thinks, "I don't want it to happen to you."

It's not very clear how many things he's referring to. He and his quad are four Galra slaves, persisting in a place that makes people crazy, that grinds down dust in an unending cycle of so much pointless effort. Where Ziani's sister will never have a name of her own, and where Champion's people will never know what happened to him.

He thinks the arena isn't a prison, it's a farm. Not many cells, they live in pens. Where they're fed like beasts and kept like beasts. And branded and bled and led like beasts. With owners that don't care to help them, and sometimes don't even care to hurt them.

Wide awake, with fever long gone, Shirogane Takashi tumbles from fog into a clarity of cold despair that he doesn't want this place to happen to her.

For whatever little his wanting is worth.

 

***

 

"Do you harbor any ill or beneficial intentions, towards any of the gladiators in this keep, be they kept or voluntary?"

"Not a one."

He glances up at the cheek, so she smiles extra wide.

"You've indicated agreement to your continued housing with the ludus?"

"Yes, Sir."

"Awareness of your fee schedule as unchanged from the Koentak 9836?"

"Yes, Sir." She doesn't grumble it.

"How will you fight?"

"Like a monster."

"Could any of your activities or planned activities be construed as an attempt to interrupt, delay, alter, or in any other way, undermine the integrity of this festival's proceedings?"

"I'll grind the dust, Sir."

Terse and rather loud, "This concludes term update and standing contract with Citizen 637-46-0456-4232, Gladiator 1-3597." Raising his hand, "Gladiator, you may return to the ludus."

Kicking her foot out and shifting her weight back off her hip, Sunkatur salutes smartly with her fist to her chest and her tail held high. But she leaves out the words, to watch his frown deepen. And when she turns, she lets her tail wave by his face, flipping a fond farewell to grumpy StoopShoulder as she strides back down to her keep.

 

***

 

Tomorrow, a tanu will fight. Today, they are getting rid of her crest. The long feathers that Shiro finds near-captivating would make too easy a handhold. Her short tail, they don't need to deal with; none of its feathers have grown right since her first time in the ring. She has no way to splay it like Ziani does hirs, but at least it's nothing grabbable.

The crest however has to go. None of them has (is allowed) anything sharp, so it's not a quick matter of hacking through the whole thing and being done with it. Instead, Ziani sits hir sister down and plucks her.

Ze starts with the longest ones. Thin, flexible fronds, the length of Shiro's forearm, land on the ground in a growing pile. It's honestly kind of pretty, coiled lines of blue and gold and green, glittering like a handful of gems.

He's afraid for her. Shiro realizes that. All he's ever seen of her has been frightened, has been angry. Under stress, she's all fury; nothing about her feelings is disciplined, and yes, that makes him afraid.

A tanu sits through losing the first ten, then Shiro's asked to help hold her head. The rest of the feathers are shorter, nestled more firmly into her skin, and the turquoise shafts come away darkened. She holds onto Shiro's wrists, never squeezing or making a sound. Her head caged between his hands, the girl doesn't meet his gaze.  

When Ziani's done, a tanu pulls away to swipe at her eyes. Gray blood has welled up in places, spotting in a rough line that begins above her brow and runs straight back over a swollen ridge of scalp. Honestly, she looks like she's sporting a mohawk, shorter feathers left sticking out behind her. Her head seems a lot smaller with no iridescent crown trailing at her back.

A tanu gathers the mess of fallen feathers in her lap. The longest one is carefully wrapped into a ring around her fist, handed off to Ziani. A straight feather is given to Loekhan, who tangles it into one of the many braids in his mane. Shiro watches in silence, wondering—like he often finds himself wondering, when it comes to the nautori—whether this is ceremonial or just sentimental.

Shiro doesn't have any expectations from the girl he made nursemaid him, but a tanu carefully selects a third feather, one of medium size, periwinkle at the base and royal at the tip. She turns it over in her hands. Wordlessly, she thrusts it at Shiro's chest, keeping her eyes down.

Not wanting to upset some cultural norm he's never heard of, Shiro takes it. His hands remember how—gently grasping the feather in his right, with the elbow supported by his left. His neck remembers to bow his head. Little motions, meaningless to her but for him, more important than ever.

He draws back, oddly touched by the gift. Wondering, a little sadly, where he'll ever be able to keep it long-term. The pinion is tucked up his sleeve for the time being.

Then a tanu stands, feathers tumbling from her lap. A sweep of her boot scatters them across the floor, where they'll lay forgotten, until they either find their way to the gutter, or another prisoner magpies them up. Or until they're trod to pieces and they add to the dust.

 

***

 

A tanu figures the best way to go about this is to just not move until she's instructed.

Which sounds good in theory, until one person tells her to move, another tells her to stop, and she winds up with a cruel hand, fisted in her feathers atop her head. A handler sneers in her ear that she will learn eventually. As he speaks, he lifts his closed hand higher. Just in case she feels like hanging herself.

A tanu thinks that Ziani didn't pluck her crest short enough. Always too gentle. She resolves to fix it herself, tonight.

Stood on her toes, her spine goes stiff as two Galra officers enter. One slim and anemic, the other thick, with richer fur. They wear masks that look something like her muzzle. The first doesn't speak, only sets to work at a table laid out in the corner, keeping his back turned.

"Gladiator has no record of service in any prior games, we may proceed."

When he turns, he carries a long needle in his hand. A tanu takes an involuntary half-step back, crest flaring as much as it can, held in the grip of the handler. The growl she gives is quiet. With her mouth covered, the guards act like they haven't heard her.

 _She just wanted to feel useful,_ but once again, her gestures are useless.

Her eyes involuntarily squeeze shut as the long needle is slowly forced under her scalp. A tanu tries to yank away. Her crest flutters. The needle drags, bevel scraping against her skull.

There is a second one. Her bound hands twist. Another secure grip takes the back of her neck as the needletip is placed deadcenter at her throat.

 _They take blood,_ Ziani had warned. _From your crest and your tovsk gland. To see if you're lying when they question you_

_Does it work?_

_… Maybe?_

_But it does hurt_

A tanu's jaw creaks. She wills her glare to dig holes through the tall officer.

The other steps forward,

"Will you conduct yourself appropriately during this Koentak?"

 

 

* * *

 

Time begins to spool, winding down. They will walk her to the gate, give her whatever last-minute help they can. Kalohenya will toss her broth high into the air and wish, "Grind the dust." (Shiro wonders for a second, how fat would Kalohenya be, if she just _ate_ her broth, instead of spending parts of it on the floor?) A tanu will head out, for the first time since she was herd as a child, and that will be that.

A tanu walks, flanked by Loekhan and Ziani, and Shiro follows behind, guilt moaning inside him. "They won't touch you," he said, but they stand here with nothing he can do for her.

Shiro's anxious finger have begun to trace the feather outlined under his sleeve, when a call of "Champion!" cuts his worry at the knees.

All three of his handlers have assembled at the side gate, leadline in hand. What could they want him for? There are only two gates in and out of here, one to the arena, one to everywhere else. A tanu's headed towards the first.

Turning back, he sees Loekhan and Ziani already disappearing, Shiro swallows down a pathetic cry of _Wait!_ Wait, he's being called alone, what does that mean? Wait, he has things to tell a tanu. _Wait_ , he doesn't know what they want him for. Shiro whirls with his heart in his throat. His arm starts throbbing, his stomach starts churning, his body tries to find him excuses not to have to go.

Marching up, his head is high. All he protests is, "My quadmate's fighting right now," and he thinks he sounds very reasonable.

"Step forward, turn around," is all it gets him.

Shiro makes a point to shrug, showing how very little this bothers him.

God, don't let her find a way to die while he's gone.

 

***

 

After he's seen his visitor, Shiro is frogmarched down the hall back to the pen, blinking through vision that's still mostly red.

Whoever she was, the woman was well-off. Champion doesn't yet have behavioral clearance for full autonomy appointment. But that didn't deter her from shelling out to investigate him, even if all she could do was look.

She looked with her hands. Still, he knows things could have been much worse.

Shiro keeps his embarrassed eyes on the floor.

Whoever she was, the woman also trained animals. Which seemed odd at first but, _Anrax for the navy, sirats and veer, to accompany ground troops. Even the occasional yupper, if business is especially slow._

There's a new mark on the back of Shiro's hand. Broken skin, dark bruise. It aches, even with the minimal jostling of his footfalls. _"Wonderful creatures. None too bright, but beautifully willing, if you just—"_ her foot twisted, "— _know how to speak their language._

 _"Your problem, Champion, is you think you speak the wrong one_."

He feels like his handlers see her fingerprints. Greasy from the food she'd eaten (she tried to feed him. She tried to _feed_ him, and _Shiro_ was the one who had to refuse it. He wasn't permitted, and his handlers wouldn't care that she was too stupid to know; she made _Shiro_ responsible for refusing and he wanted to tear her head off). Now, he is covered in her. The bottoms of his feet, the backs of his shoulders, from his face to his ass to the underside of his balls, but he shouldn't be scared, he should really be grateful. Things could have gone very badly.

It gets unbearably hot inside a muzzle, Shiro wishes he weren't blushing to begin with. His handlers haven't stopped laughing since he stepped outside. Without an overhead translator, Shiro doesn't know if they're laughing at him, much as it feels like they must be.

But

" _No one's thinking about you that much,_ " she'd smiled, gently.

She trained animals. That's why she came to see him and that's why she activated his collar three separate times, just to teach him ground-manners while she checked his feet and looked inside his mouth.

More and more often it seems, Shiro's finding he doesn't know how to be. Days ago, when he watched Nikta, he should have been horrified. Instead he'd been empty. His only feelings came out stilted and forced, informed by social conventions that were no longer pertinent. But now, nothing had even really happened, and yet—

Whistling at funerals and crying over papercuts, what's wrong with him?

Shiro's been staring at his feet quite determinedly, but glancing up, his mouth suddenly drops open because who should he see walking toward him?

"Champion!" she calls.

Of all people, there is Sunkatur. The plates on her throat make that rustling motion, like leaves on a tree. It's a movement he's starting to think means excitement. "My, my, I said 'soon,' I didn't think _this_ soon. Isn't your little dear one out fighting?" Her mouth splits into a toothy smile, arms swinging with her stride.

"You're on appointment?" Shiro blurts.

"Me? On app—no. No, not remotely." One carelessly raised hand, and Champion's escort stop dead, to let them talk. Sunkatur tosses her head, plates rattling. "Champion, I don't take appointment, I _make_ it."

She sweeps one grand arm out, stepping aside to reveal the skinny, sniggering form of Dotar. Bound just like Shiro is, but looking a hell of a lot happier about it.

Sunkatur's laughter drowns out her toady's, "You thought I was here to take appointment? Oh Champion, I only _live_ with you at the keep." She reaches out to his muzzled cheek, and Shiro's churning stomach tries to climb up his esophagus. "Perks to not being a criminal." With her mouth in a half-twist, _what can ya do?,_ her voice is very sympathetic. She gives his face a few firm pats. The force of her hand jolts through his skull; her obnoxious affections rattle his brain.

Walking her hand down, she gives him a hard, comradely slap to his shoulder. Her fingers carefully knead at muscle like she is making an assessment. "But I'm very interested to see that _you_ are taking them." Her eyes glitter just like the wealthy woman's. Just like Nikta's.

Shiro sees the ass-slap coming, but when the sting lands right atop the woman's handprint from earlier, he still flinches hard. Sunkatur's laugh is a laser-guided warhead, and Shiro can feel red climb up to his ears as he turns stubbornly away. Searching for something to glare at, his eyes land on his own shoulder. The right one, the one she isn't holding, the one Nikta wrenched out ( _humiliation,_ he remembers, _Nikta liked that_ and clearly, he was not the only one). Shiro will hate himself for flinching, he'll hate himself so very much, but right now he just wants to be gone from here.

But he realizes there's not anywhere to wish he could go. He would so desperately like to have some place he could be alone. A cell by himself, a wall he could huddle behind. Some place he could long for right now. He wishes he could wish for it. But there's no privacy in the pens. Nowhere for hiding, no doors anywhere except for gates at the front that lock all the chaos _in._

Right now, the loud bustle of the pen seems like a nightmare, so Shiro just stands, staring at his own shoulder, promising he'll hate himself later, and willing his ears not to hear and his eyes not to see, because he can't stand to be here, but there's nowhere to wish for and no escape anyway.

A hard shove jostles him forward. While Shiro stood, all-but-weeping, Sunkatur had grown bored with his histrionics and walked on. The palm between his shoulders tells him no more time will be spent on his sniveling, people here have work to do.

He glances backward just in time to see Sunkatur yank Dotar around a corner. But he feels her follow him down the hall.

By the time the gate slams behind him and his face is uncovered and the stench of the pen is assaulting his nostrils, Shiro remembers that a tanu's match is still on. Unblooded fights always take the longest, inexperience dragging everything out. He wasn't even gone that long, but his skin _still_ crawls with the need to curl up alone, he _still_ wants nothing so much as to be _far away from here,_ someplace where no one is touching him.

But that's still not an option he has.

A tanu is fighting. Right now.

And _that_ galvanizes Shiro to head for the far wall, where the gathered bouquet of _unwashed animal_ has somehow overpowered the gutter's normal miasma of marinated feces. Unless he's on recon, it's a place Shiro avidly avoids (too hot, too close, too many chances for something sharp to find its way into his back). Elbowing his way into swarm gets him plastered to twenty different bodies in the span of three seconds. His feet splash in tepid channelwater without hesitation, he hikes his elbows up onto the ledge, because what Shiro _actually_ wants more than anything is to know that she didn't find a way to die in the time that he was gone.

Shiro blinks a snapshot—two people on the ground, with a tanu's thumb sunk deep into her opponent's eye; angry and afraid, and nothing about her is disciplined—and breathes a sigh of relief. She's not dead. For a split-second, his raw nerves are dipped in cool water. Namo Buddhaya and thank God, because everything else can follow from _not dead._

Her opponent is about her size, another nobody. At first glance, he can already say a tanu's guard is tighter, her feet are slower, more likely to plant instead of moving. Shiro's first fight hadn't been as unblooded, he'd been sent in as herd to feed Myzax. But as far as he knows, it goes like this: unblooded fights are either very interesting or very boring, depending entirely on whether inexperience makes the fighters bold, or makes them timid. If they're both rabid, then the crowd loves it and both usually live. If one is too nervous, they'll probably lose and then it just depends. But if _both_ are nervous, they run the terrible risk of a fight going _too_ long.

Long means boring. Which isn't something the crowd suffers mercifully.

Shiro still doesn't have a perfect handle on exactly what spectators finds interesting (a dark voice reminds him _bullshit_ , yes he has, doesn't he remember being a hero for them?) but by the blood spilt from a tanu's mouth, and the dark mess where her opponent's eye used to be, surely no one will say they aren't putting in an adequate effort. Right? The desperate parts of Shiro's heart make their desperate decree that _surely._ Surely, this is enough, and she will walk away having done well.

That heart drops when a tanu's head bounces on the ground.

It leaps when she isolates a joint in her opponent's over-articulated arm, and locks that joint right up.

And— _yes, good girl_ —it soars high when she doesn't stop at just locking it. When she follows her pressure through, prompts an inaudible snap, but an unmistakable wail.

_The hell are you doing cadet? and damn, but that was his collarbone, if he'd been any slower- Get your bitchfit off the mat you won't get another warning_

Angry ghosts vie for his attention, digging at weakpoints he shouldn't have, but this is no place for him to fall apart. Searching for Ziani, he spots the raised crest three or four heads down. The instant Shiro relinquishes his spot at the ledge, someone shoves in. Long, pointed fingers dig painfully into his shoulder and flank, maneuvering him aside, out of their way. Shiro hates to be handled at the best of times, and today the fingers are as brands, adding to the collage he still feels burned onto his back and his ass and his shoulders and face.

His arm throbs and his ribs twinge, but he is already forgotten him. Ever-haunted by the specter of their own boredom, gladiators love the fights almost more than the crowd does. Manners get trampled in the rush, because what else is there to do in here?

So, Shiro has no reservations about trampling his own manners and more than a few people, as he makes his way to Ziani. There are hands all over him but he tells himself this is a fight, of _course_ there are. Loud noises and sweaty bodies are standard. Shiro is probably sorely testing his collar's limits, with how many pushy, unsuspecting faces meet his elbow.

Ziani feels him jostle up behind hir and without looking, swats a backfist in his direction.

Both Shiro's hands are occupied fighting the tide, he winds up taking it above his eye.

Bright colors and brighter pain bloom at the spot, a startled "Fuck!" comes out of his mouth. Turning fast, Ziani's eyes widen in recognition. Shiro clamps a hand on hir shoulder, using it to haul himself the last of the way into the tiny slot ze helps open by hir side.

If he's expecting a "Sorry," he won't-... well, he's not expecting a sorry. Shiro tries to pry open more space for himself. Someone slams into his back, earning him a facefull of arena dirt, but he'll take that readily for a bit of room. The heat is oppressive. So many people, he feels like he can't breathe. Every hand belongs to Sunkatur, to the rich woman and his control is skittering over an abyss.

"How long's it been going?" He practically has to yell.

"Not long. Delayed start." Ziani's jaw is as tight as he's ever seen it. Shiro doesn't want to imagine what he'd be feeling if it were _his_ sister out there. _What ever happened to that family of his? Is that something worth knowing?_ flits through his head, a single image in a world running 144 frames per second. He sees a tanu spin up to her feet. She opens her mouth and Shiro's gut has just enough time to clench, just before she lets out a scream.

It isn't a loud that Shiro hears with his ears. It's a loud that seems to bypass noise entirely, drilling into his head to chew up his amygdala. He's in pain, he's afraid, he's revolted, he's nauseous, he wants to _back away throw up run away run everything hurts and his head's going to split_

Blinking open watering eyes, Shiro discovers himself in a crouch with his back to the wall, arms tight against his head. He's practically sitting in the channel, looking down at the excrement bobbing around his ankles. Stomach acid rockets up his throat and he shoots to his feet, holding his breath. He can't throw up his water ration. His head is spinning. It's pounding, he _needs_ to throw up.

But the feeling's already begun to fade. From one blink to the next, the pain has already dropped to an 8, to a 6. The urge to vomit swirls begrudgingly back down, and with a sticky sense of embarrassment, Shiro realizes he's unharmed. On his either side, gladiators are already dusting themselves off, scrambling back up to wedge their faces into the gutter opening, determined not to miss a single thing. His legs wobble before he can find his balance. More than ever, he wants retreat somewhere to let his knees unlock. Even just to his corner, somewhere he can just curse until he feels better and hold his splitting head until he stops having to swallow saliva. Somewhere with no one else.

Spinning back to face the ring, he pushes his way in, next to Ziani. His head hurts enough that his vision's blurry and everything has a gray ring around it but he's worked through worse. And it seems he's not the only one—out on the sand, he sees a tanu's opponent stagger like a drunk, but they don't go down. It definitely hurt them like it hurt Shiro, but he thinks she'll have to pick her shots better if she wants to get utility out of something so survivable. Shiro makes a frazzled note to talk through it with her if she'll let him. After this is over. After she comes back safely.

Swallowing to try and get his stomach to settle, he awkwardly tilts his head to check the nearest faces in the crowd. He regrets to confirm that yes, a tanu's efforts proved more sound, less fury. The concussion didn't make it above ground-level. None of the spectators registered anything more head-splitting than just a scream, and he gives a short laugh—all of them literally _lifted above_ the pain still throbbing behind Shiro's eyes.

A stranger's voice appears next to his ear. "Listen."

Shiro stiffens. They probably took advantage of the upset to push their way forward.

"Listen. Tell you. . . . dangerous."

At his other side, pressed against him from hip to shoulder, he feels Ziani go rigid, hir posture hard and unwelcoming, though hir eyes never stray from the sand.

Neither do Shiro's. Keeping his voice level, he asks, "What's that?"

They say something else Shiro doesn't catch. At his blank stare, they let out a huff, trying again.

"Pay," is said very slowly and clearly. "Like GAC. You. . . like you . . . pay." _Give,_ he thinks. That new word might be _give;_ Shiro tries to log that. "I tell you."

He's saying he wants to be paid. Shiro nearly rolls his eyes, who the hell doesn't?

"Talk," Shiro doesn't know the word for _first,_ so, "now." His annoyance spikes up, a welcome insulation against smoldering panic and smothering hands, and the bone-chilling fear that glues his eyes to the ring. There's a way of doing these things, and this fool isn't following it.

Shiro's been taken for a ride before. Less than a week in here, he traded his entire day's meal, piece by piece, to a good-but-not-too-good Samaritan, for halting (charade-predominant) information on somebody who was apparently out to jump him.

For all Shiro's experience with touts (and it's a lot; whenever he moved to a new place, it always took _months_ , to be recognized and recategorized from "target" to "neighbor"), it took him way too long to realize there was no somebody. Fighting on an emptier stomach than usual was an exercise in misery, more than enough motivation for him to sidle up next to his "friend" at the next rounds, and extract something of a

Refund.

Not sufficient to recoup his losses (there are rules in here), but Shiro already knew not to let it stand that someone successfully victimized him (there are _rules_ in here). He nearly lost an earlobe to their teeth, but they lost more.

So, when some stranger pulls up, playing coy and talking payment from the get-go? And Shiro's control already threadthin as it is?

The words, "No deal" are writing themselves on his tongue. Right behind the words, "Fuck off."

Shiro sees Loekhan slowly push his way over, advancing up behind the stranger.

The stranger's eyes are small, swiveling like a lizard's as they wring their four hands. "One quad."

On the sand, a tanu slides beneath a strike, wild-eyed in a way Shiro's never seen her in the pen.

"One. One _of_ quad. Is not—"

Loekhan's trunk lands on the stranger's shoulder. The chameleon eyes jerk up, the green skin turns dust-colored, and the stranger is tossed away before another word can be said.

Reaching up, Shiro knocks elbows with Loekhan. The friendly motion sends pain jolting all the way up his arm, tender and inflamed, but his smile is fixed. He exchanges greetings with his quadmate, suddenly wondering if Loekhan might have it in for him, and how fast Loekhan can move crammed between so many gladiators and how fast Shiro can scramble away and who he can get between him and Loekhan because did all that mean Loekhan has it in for him?

His brain fastballs the idea forward, watching it pachinko around off the walls. The shelf it comes to teeter on is very high up, Shiro's a paranoid motherfucker. On the one hand, they're quad. Forced-friendly these past days, and as far as Shiro knows, Loekhan has done nothing but help him. But. They _were_ forced-friendly. Loekhan _did_ take care of him. And appreciation can cloud anybody's judgement, Shiro's no exception.

And Ziani tensed when the stranger showed up. No, he doesn't want to think Ziani would do something to him but with a tanu here, Ziani could do _anything_ and fuck, Shiro's just _standing_ here, right between them. A tanu's scream still echoes in his head, he feels nauseous. Wrongfooted with his thoughts rubbed all raw, and nothing to nail him down when he degenerates to a frantic pulse of half-formed conclusions. Suspicion worms its way through his weaknesses and all he can hear is the wealthy woman's voice layering upon Sunkatur's, privilege braided with privilege, so _very glad_ to hear he's taking meetings Shiro can't trust anyone, can he?

It's around that point that deep in his brain, there's a safety valve that goes off. Somewhere, someone hits an _Abort_ button. _Slow it down, crazy_ , and Shiro becomes aware that he's wheezing. The pain and the noise of it take him by surprise. _Have some self-respect, there are people watching. Look who the hell you're leaning on._ Shiro looks down. Loekhan. He is leaning on Loekhan. That seems

Stupid of him. But there it is, with Shiro's lock-kneed weight sagged into Loekhan's shoulder and his nose dipped into Loekhan's fur because, on some level too atavistic to ignore, his panicky brain connects _grazer,_ _herbivore_ with something soothing, something secure.

 _Walk your shit back, idiot._ First order of business, Shiro holds his breath, because breathing hurts and the whooshing racket won't let him think. Second, he shifts his weight more deliberately onto Loekhan, trying to look like he's here on purpose. _Good, maybe there's_ some _hope for you._ Third order of business, breathe again because he can't hold it back a second longer. He opens his mouth to minimize the sound of whistling air, he turns his face farther into matted fur. He tries to panic without anyone noticing.

But that's not hard. Wasn't he just told? Nobody's thinking of him very much. Just as he slipped the officers' minds, he slips his penmates' minds as well— _Oh fuck you,_ he hears for his hypocrisy—just like how at this very instant, a tanu has slipped _his_ mind because he's too wrapped up in his own selfish bullshit to pay attention. He'd been so terrified for this match. But here he stands, cringing like a child over a hundred things that aren't her. Voices and delusions of people out to kill him.

Shiro pries his head up, eyes on the sand.

A tanu stomps a foot on her opponent's throat.

He has to look away, he doesn't want to vomit. He wrings his hands, twisting them over and over each other. Under his sleeve, his fingers trace the spine of one straight feather.

Shiro's face crumples. He did promise he would hate himself later.

The remainder of the match plays out, with Shiro's eyes hidden pathetically in Loekhan's fur, and the press of people all around him. With his thumb following a steady path up and down the feather at his sleeve. The repetitive motion holds his focus, he never does tune back into the match. But she wins, he at least knows that.

He knows that she wins because back in the pen, when he's still trying to pull himself together—with arms braced across his chest, fighting to tug his thoughts back under his skin but they're bursting out, biting ants chewing with a vengeance and _fuck,_ how he wishes Sunkatur hadn't seen him—

the girl in question bounces right up. Back from medical, with a thick clean wrap, glowing around her upper arm, and a new set of stapled scrapes wrapping around her neck. The lower half of her face is puffed up to twice its usual size, forcing her eye into a squint. Medical couldn't do anything for the three teeth now missing from her grin.

"Did you catch the end?" she asks. "Ziani told me you were scared." _What?_  "Ze said you couldn't watch, but did you see the very end? I brought him to the vote. He pleaded pardon, but I didn't have to let him. What do you think of that?" Her snaggle-toothed smile is enough to light up the entire room.

If she had pranced up to him, smeared head-to-toe in human shit, Shiro would not have been more taken aback.

 

***

 

_No less than fifteen dobashes of face-to-face time was spent with each gladiator, I confirm my presence during individual assessment. Vocal and blood marker analysis results are negative, see: attached. With staff inspector and multidisciplinary arena personnel, I jointly formulated the impressions and recommendations as elaborated in each gladiator's file. With the bloodying of their unblooded, Quad 945 is cleared to move forward in training and preparation for this, Koentak 9837._

_Ulaz, Medical Officer_

_Panmorphology Attending Physician_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To those thinking about how 'namo Buddhaya' isn't as commonly heard in Japan? Yup, don't worry.  
> I'm not so sure this chapter... ~~isn't garbage~~ works. It never had that 'magical draft' moment, when all the loose ends came together into cohesiveness. Also it's long as fuck, and that's always iffy.

**Author's Note:**

> Come enjoy the space dorks and laugh at me on [Tumblr.](http://sassafrassrex.tumblr.com/)  
> Oops. _With_ me, on Tumblr.


End file.
